Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

[sanderson13]

Some great ideas in the comments,but I kept my list to five and to features that either only apply to CFM or impact CFM much more than other modes, or would be used much more frequently in CFM. Usability, natural-feeling gameplay and realistic stats are my top goals!

Top Five
1. Fix auto-subs for CPU: make my opponent feel more like their real-world version
2. Enable customizing CPU playbooks: same
3. Formation- or Play-specific substitutions (ie., make it easy for me to roll with 4 Safeties when I choose Nickel): make it easy for me to use my roster and its strengths the way I want or mirror their real-life usage, and let me save this setting
4. Gameday or week-to-week individual player assignments, ie., CB1 covers WR1 or Left Side, Dbl Team TE.
If Sherman is covering one side, I want him to do that in my CFM. same if he starts covering the slot!
5. Eliminate Confidence and Drive Goals:

Other Good Ideas
League scoreboard in bottom ticker
Lock trajectories for some player stats that should degrade over time or stay flat if the guy is a stud (eg., STR,SPD), and tweak the XP system to go both up and down depending on performance and training time dedicated to that player.

[Tgar05]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

While I agree that madden isn't perfect I do believe it's gets a high percentage of things right. I have really enjoyed the last 2 editions EA has put out particularly cfm. I think they have been great. I did start playing franchise mode on madden 04 so I understand that a lot of people think of the ps2/xbox editions as the golden madden age for cfm/franchise mode and would classify myself as one of those fans but I think a lot of criticism EA gets is bit over blown as I have found my gm mode on 2k to be unplayable with all the micro managing that's needed. Adjusting practice difficultly and keeping the head coaches feelings from getting hurt make me quit before I ever really get started. So the new features madden adds while sometimes ineffective haven't become a game killing issue for me yet.

That being said my 5 additions to madden 17 would be:
1. Position battles in Preseason
2. More coach changing selections while playing as an owner ie. Be able to hire steelers def coordinator or jets off coordinator as head coach/ being able to choose coordinators while playing as head coach.
3. Restricted free agency
4. A better scale of degressing attribute ie. wrs in their 30s speed shouldnt drop as drastically
5. Realistic contract demands by players as they seem to agree to much less than what they are worth

[Matthew25x]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

Great thread with a lot of fantastic input. I will most likely only be echoing others at this point but i will throw my notes into the discussion...

Expanded coaching staff and impact.
- HC, OC, DC, ST, GM.
- Better coaches make their units play better.
- coaches have styles/personalities. Good coaches will attack defensive weaknesses. Cocky or bad coaches may just play however they want. Good coordinators have better playcalling abilities.
- Positional coaches may be a stretch.
- Background history on real and fictional coaches. Also having their own strengths and weaknesses.
- Good coaching staff make crappy teams play a little better. Bad coaching staffs make stacked teams play a little worse
- GM responsible for building team that fits HC system. Thus they will make personnel moves accordingly.
- Good GM has better chance at trading for, drafting, or signing players that fit their system.
- Role system/personalities for coaches?

Expanded news and immersion.
- National/big news, such as nfl.com
- beat writer blogs for each team. Real writers or fictional writers.
- Major news outlet would break news on trades, injuries, big division wins, etc... Nfl.com type stuff. Individual blogs would focus more on the team. Like how good or bad they are playing. Will a player sign an extension at the end of the season. News about how a 3rd rounder just got his first sack/TD/INT/etc...
- Press conferences?
- Put the major news and/or team news back on first page of franchise. It should be in your face.
- Off-season updates, camps, injuries, etc... Everything!

Expanded player roles that create gameplanning.
- QBs human and AI should respect and fear testing guys like Sherman/Revis.
- Human and AI should focus on playing away from star defenders or doubling star recievers, etc. Expanding coaching/gameplanning connects to this.
- Actual gameplanning. What type of offense. What type of defense. Figure out the weaknesses and mismatches. Who are the stars and sleepers to keep an eye on?
- Team distractions. Allow coach to choose disciplinary action. Star player late for meetings. Bench him for a quarter? Half? Entire game? Be careful the balance of team chemistry and losing team discipline by letting troublemakers off too easy. Teams can lose morale and become undisciplined on the field, prone to mistakes. They also play better when the team is winning and trash talk opponents. But they play less inspired when losing and throw their own team under the bus.

Team chemistry.
- New coaches and players and systems take time to gel. No more building an instant champion by signing a boatload of high profile free agents and mega trades.
- Building chemistry builds discipline and morale. Teams player tighter and better. Coaches impact discipline. As do distractions, injuries, losing etc..

Rebuild playing modes.
- Player, coach, owner all feel exactly the same. Theres really no immersion here, yet all 3 should have their own feel. Something that draws the player in to that mode that cant be found in the others.

New commentators.
- Its just time to go in a new direction.

Team builder.
- allow created teams in franchise mode.
- make a new team creator. Even the one like ncaa football would be an improvement, but have it offline rather than online only. And it would be nice to finally have new logos rather than the same generic ones that havent changed for years.

Practice squads.

[Shadymamba]

I remember we were able to completely edit the offensive and defensive alignment even the special teams I know you mentioned here, but in the past from the home screen you went in and edited your special teams and you had all your ballers out there (IE Seattle) running down on the kickoff - the special teams was just a small sample, but instead of doing it in game you can set your 4-3 to one group and your 4-3 over to another group that way it was ok subs set, start the game, and barring injury that was one less thing to worry about

[Tgar05]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

The #1 thing I wish they would add is an on/off option for showing ratings! It helps so many problems and can't possibly be difficult to add, because ratings can still run in the background.

Things this fixes/helps:

1 - Progression/regression issues are masked because if you dominate with a 75 speed Anquan Boldin, you don't really notice. If you win MVP with Colin Kaepernick, you don't feel ripped off by seeing his OVR go up only two measly points. All you know is you killed it with them. It doesn't solve the progression/regression issue, but it's a very easy way to mask it.

2 - Practice and Pre-season games matter! Who should be my number 2 running back? Which receivers should I have in the game on fourth and 4 when you need to catch a pass in traffic? Now you can't just see that player X is better than player Y and should be in the game. You have to actually PLAY with them to figure it out.

3 - Drafting is much more immersive. You don't know immediately after drafting someone if they are the next star of the league, or if your first rounder sucks. You have to use them and find out, just like in real life.


Maybe someone with more experience with programming could tell me why I'm wrong, but I can't see how this takes any substantial time to add into the game. You aren't changing how the game runs, simply changing something that shows up - ratings.

I like that idea. I remember a guy playing madden 11 and left the edit player feature and would manually adjust guys overalls based on their stats.

[NFCastle]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

Customization. Give us the ability to fix the screw ups that are built into the game. We shouldn't be stuck with an unplayable franchise/forced to restart after one or two seasons.

Allowing player editing in offline cfm would make the game so much more enjoyable.

[IlluminatusUIUC]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

This is bit pie in the sky, but I would love the ability to run a completely custom online CFM. Why should we run all 32 teams if we only have 16 good players. Just re-organize the league down to two 8 team conferences and 14 game seasons.

Let gamers move franchises before the CFM starts. The Titans suck. Long live the Houston Oilers. (to name one example)

[l8knight1]

Why did they give us legendary coaches in Franchise and then take them away!!??

[jhigginsluckow]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

The #1 thing I wish they would add is an on/off option for showing ratings! It helps so many problems and can't possibly be difficult to add, because ratings can still run in the background.

Things this fixes/helps:

1 - Progression/regression issues are masked because if you dominate with a 75 speed Anquan Boldin, you don't really notice. If you win MVP with Colin Kaepernick, you don't feel ripped off by seeing his OVR go up only two measly points. All you know is you killed it with them. It doesn't solve the progression/regression issue, but it's a very easy way to mask it.

2 - Practice and Pre-season games matter! Who should be my number 2 running back? Which receivers should I have in the game on fourth and 4 when you need to catch a pass in traffic? Now you can't just see that player X is better than player Y and should be in the game. You have to actually PLAY with them to figure it out.

3 - Drafting is much more immersive. You don't know immediately after drafting someone if they are the next star of the league, or if your first rounder sucks. You have to use them and find out, just like in real life.


Maybe someone with more experience with programming could tell me why I'm wrong, but I can't see how this takes any substantial time to add into the game. You aren't changing how the game runs, simply changing something that shows up - ratings.

A simple option at the beginning of creating a Franchise would be great for this. You could choose between having full numeric ratings (like they are now), letter ratings (like sort of like how the draft is done), or no ratings.

[banana403]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

Here are mine, which I'm trying to make different from everyone elses but it's really hard.

1. Passing defence seems to be ridiculously one-sided. I have a crazy hard time stopping the pass, which in turn means I give up like 500 yards passing every single game. It can probably be fixed via sliders, but I'm not sure what a good balance would be. Not to mention both safeties and corners make insane mistakes that don't make any kind of sense.

2. Drafting could be a lot more interesting. I think having an idea of where each player is going (mock drafts or draft intelligence from staff) would give me the ability to see if my targeted player(s) will be where I intend to draft him, or if I should try trading up or down. This would be constantly evolving throughout the season and the draft, but I think it would make me pay attention to scouting and the trading block more closely.

3. Players need to qualify in stats in order to be considered a league leader. It's sort of a peeve to go into the stats page and see that my QBR is 18th in the league, but there are 9 guys listed who have 1 touchdown on 1 passing attempt ahead of him.

4. Player momentum and ball spotting seem to be consistently awkward and sketchy.

5... I don't know. I can't think of one at the moment.

[EAGLESFAN10]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

1 word 2 numbers


Madden 05


*Drops Mic*

[Toupal]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

Nothing in there about customization.... shame

[cheddabob7502]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

I would like to include my few cents:

-Rosters, make it like the real NFL were you have to activate and deactivate roster spots, like the NFL you can only dress a certain amount of players, not just 53 designated, this would make it more strategic to how many D-Line play versus CB and so on, (this is why practice squad would be important)

-Defensive camera, (there is only one/two option) the camera options to Play offense should be the same amount as it would be on Defense.

This are only a couple that come to mind so far besides the others

[SyncereBlackout]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

Practice squad of 22. Where the practice squad players get (minimal) XP (+100 per player per week).

A built in waiver system for CFM where a commissioner would have the ability to set the OVR of the players that must pass through waivers. (Or make it based on years in the league and the week of the season the the NFL)

The ability for CFM commissioners to turn off visual settings for the entire league (and other similar settings)

I would like player ratings to fall in 3 buckets. Physical - ones that don't change/fluctuate very much (combine stats); coach able- awr & play recognition which can be upgraded with XP but capped by players learning ability (and hopefully a learning attribute similar to NFL coach); and skill attributes which will be dynamic and linked to position coaches, scheme and player confidence/drive goals/Milestone's.

I would like assistant and position coaches that gain XP based on player performance and the success of a gameplan (based on scheme/play style)

[Von Dozier]

Re: Five New Additions For Madden NFL's Franchise Mode We'd Like to See

Let us fully edit the players ala NCAA14