[canes21]

I know this likely never happens, and that depresses me, but with Looman in charge I'd love to see the game really strive to be more like what Head Coach was and what it would have evolved into today if it had never gone away.

Players having to learn the playbooks, setting up the weekly schedule, making a big part of the gameplay loop be the in-week stuff while gameday was the reward, etc. There needs to be more engagement off the field, and it needs to matter.

Simply put, a lot more depth is needed in that department, and it needs to have varying levels of automation for those that essentially want to just play the actual games and do very little in-between. It's been far too long that we've been forced to essentially play a list of Play Now games with some small hints of it being a franchise mode. We need significant amounts of depth with options for those that don't want to fool with it all. Then, you please all crowds. When you keep the mode so simple, you're just pleasing the play now franchise crowd and leaving people like myself left wanting a whole lot more.

I get it, I'm not likely the average fan of the game. The average player probably doesn't care if they have expanded coaching staffs, they probably don't even know if they'd like a feature where players had to learn the playbooks, etc.

With what they have added to the off-field side of the game, it looked pretty cheesy off the bat. But, it could still be good if done right. However, it seems like based off the wording the CPU teams will still not get scenarios and the majority of scenarios look like they are simply morale/ratings boosts or dev trait boosts. It remains simple and gives the user a gigantic advantage in a franchise when they get all these chances for these boosts while the CPU teams don't.

I don't think Madden is a bad game. I think the gameplay has been improving on the current generation of consoles. I just think if it weren't for The Show, Madden would have the most boring franchise mode of them all and I really wish it were different. I wish the depth 2k had was the minimum expectations for Madden's franchise mode and they really strove to not only get to that level, but far surpass it and please the diehard franchise fans that want a lot more nitty gritty depth to the mode.

I want coaching staffs, I want to deal with figuring out a basic practice schedule for my team, I want to read legit scouting reports on the opposition, I want them to have the AI capabilities to scout me before a game, I want them to have advanced AI that makes it feel like playing the CPU is like playing a real person in franchise mode, etc.

It just seems like none of that is what EA wants, though. If the gameplay is as good as the beta made me believe it could be, and I can get sliders in a place where I feel it's as fun and as challenging as I have CFB25, then I will still be able to get deeper into a franchise off the gameplay alone. I just wish it wasn't that gameplay on the field that drove me to go years into a franchise mode. I wish there was depth that made me feel engaged and like I was part of a living breathing universe as an actual coach of a team.