[Iteachpercussion]

Ok folks, looking for some feedback, ideas, and suggestions. Really I want to open a conversation about classic rosters.

My current situation:
I have been making classic rosters for Madden for several years now. I started sharing them back with M25 on the XBOX360. Every year I make single season rosters, some years I make several rosters, other years only one or two. The process, as most of you know, is long and tedious and prior to M19 it was impossible to get height and weight correct. I enjoy making rosters and doing all of the background research and ratings stuff.

I have always tried to make sure that I created a good balance between played games and simmed games. I tried to force the game to create accurate run/pass ratios and game and season stats. However, the Madden sim engine simply struggles to create what I want. In previous Madden years it was possible to lower players ratings enough to force the sim engine to give pretty solid stats. However, that often came at a price... the played games were not as good.

As a result, I have tried moving away from using Franchise mode and using Play Now and setting up custom playbooks to get the desired results. I have had decent success with that model. However, for M19 I decided to give Franchise mode another chance. The sim engine simply could not be manipulated unless you fast sim each individual game. Even then, the playcalling is not great and you have to live with shotgun formations way too often for classic rosters such as my 1985 roster. So, even with the ability to create draft classes, a feature I was originally excited for, I have become again frustrated with Franchise mode.

Capa created an awesome 1970 roster that I have been playing quite a bit in Play Now games. I went back to creating playbooks to see if I could replicate 1970s football. While not perfect, I believe I created a pretty good offensive and defensive playbook. That got me to thinking about the future.

News of M20 started coming out recently, and there are some very positive additions (if they all work) which could make Franchise mode a better experience. However, I have not seen anything to suggest that any of the new features will help those of us who enjoy classic rosters and want an authentic classic football experience. What the mode needs for us is the ability to assign custom playbooks to CPU teams without some ridiculous work-around. We need the ability to set team run/pass ratios for playcalling. That feature used to be in Madden and worked back in M10,11 and 12. Without that feature, I do not know if I can stand to play classic rosters in Franchise mode any more. I am especially worried because EA announced that they are adding RPOs to the playbooks which will continue to destroy an authentic classic roster experience, much like the pistol formation.

While Madden 19 does have its problems in terms of gameplay, I feel that overall it is a very solid game in its current state. I have my sliders set and feel I can get a solid and challenging experience. So this brings me to the purpose of this thread...
Will Madden 20 be worth it for classic rosters?

Should I just stick with M19 and create additional classic rosters for Play Now?

What are your plans for M20 or M19?

Would classic roster fans prefer to use Play Now with custom playbooks on Madden 19?

Other thoughts?

Looking for feedback, thoughts, and ideas.