If You Were in Charge of Madden: What Is Your Five-Year Plan (Roundtable)

[RaychelSnr]

With the recent news of Rex Dickson leaving EA, there's never been a better time for...

Written By: Operation Sports

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[Impetuous65]

Fire whoever does animations, ask Visual Concepts and SDS to assist in the animation process, cause clearly having the largest animation studio doesn't mean anything. Spend the entire cycle working on situational/contextual/blending animations for any giving outcome. While simultaneously working on the AI and nothing but AI and Animations.

[tfcfan4life]

Gameplay improvements and deep franchise mode. That's all I care about. I could care less about the other modes.

[goalieump413]

Franchise and presentation... Yada yada...

Same song, second verse.

This has been the rallying cry of gamers and media everywhere for so long, that I think it's just noise to EA at this point. Whoever takes over as creative director will face this as a continuing, annoying challenge. But that's not what's going to endear him/her to his/her creative team and superiors. What will endear this 'lucky' individual is how the title will grow in volume of sales and microtransactions over the next xx years. People want to hear that their jobs are secure, not how much more work they will now be facing.

The only real way franchise/career and presentation will see any marked improvements any time soon is if real competition surfaces. Trouble is, since the NFL has an exclusive licensing agreement, no other truly competitive product is on the horizon.

If I was handed the job, I'd focus on an immersive career mode that's scalable to the interests of a broad audience. I'd also tear down the vanilla presentation and create a tangible, 'football' experience for my customers. No more 'video gamey' experience. Screw that. Instead, what you see on fall weekends is what you experience in the title.

Finally, transparency. Take a year off from a title release, produce a series of development/marketing updates for the public to comment on, remove all disguises. At this point, with the exclusive license, fans will always buy the title. They deserve to know the truth about what to expect.

[SageInfinite]

1st I would try to rework the philosophy from the top down. Cut the gimmicks and quick money grabs. Let's make a real NFL game that gets the sport right first, then add the frills of other modes and such. Let's get gameplay, franchise, presentation, options/customization, and visuals right first, then work on story modes, MUT or whatever.

Then I would try to find a dev that could carry out the vision, or either gut most of Tiburon, because I honestly don't think they can get it done.

[Toupal]

I would fire anyone who signed off on the idea of making NO improvements to Franchise Mode for Madden 18

Then I would put every ounce of energy, penny, and time in Franchise Mode to catch-up with the rest of the sports games.

Once Franchise Mode is on par with 2k, I would then split the focus and energy across all fields.

[DukesofHazzard]

First thing i would do is get rid of connected franchise mode and go back to regular franchise mode. They are so limited on what they can do in franchise mode right now. The devs even said so back in like madden 13 i believe.

Sent from my VK810 4G using Operation Sports mobile app

[JoshC1977]

If I were running Madden, my five year plan would be:

• Complete overhaul of the gameplay engine. In a series where main menu settings impact CFM, where fatigue settings, autosub settings, penalty sliders etc. have a dramatic impact on gameplay, everything needs to be gutted. There is legacy code on legacy code here....nothing positive can happen till the entire thing has been gutted and rebuilt....which is likely a 2 year project.
• Development of an animation system that doesn't rely on canned animations. It's certainly better than it has been, but dramatic improvements are still needed.
• Re-done ratings system. Basically, build it so that the overall rating is based on a handful of key ratings based on the player type. So, if a player is a power RB, high trucking/stiff arm will greatly bump up his overall (even if he has crappy elusiveness, spin move, etc.). Right now, the only way to get the overall rating up there would be to boost those other ratings which take away from his identity as a power back.
• Creation of an ultimate sim experience gameplay-wise. Passing into windows (not to the "open guy"), real pass rush with no artificial timers, a game where ratings matter. I can write a novel here...
• Enhancements to the franchise mode to add better fidelity for multi-team control, to add greater immersion into the league, and to add more authentic NFL rules. Resist the urge to mimic NBA 2k's awful franchise "starter kit" and do something truly fun and immersive. Deuce's thread isn't far off the mark.
• Addition of a true "season mode" to the game. Many people just want to play a season with "their team" without the hassle of franchise.
• Total overhaul to Ultimate Team. Add deeper User v CPU modes that encourage use of a full range of cards in building your team (not just the upgrade, upgrade, upgrade paradigm seen now). Adding of a full season mode where your UT plays against a full NFL schedule (including playoffs). All games will be full sim and the option to use a realistic quarter length and difficulty level for all offline games will be granted (with online matches locked-in at 8 minute quarters). Creation of a F2P mode where you cannot purchase anything or play against anyone who has purchased anything; everything else would be exactly the same as the "pay mode"...which many people will still do to serve their desires for instant gratification.
• Creation of an 7v7 or 8v8 competitive mode. Competitive sports will never work long-term for true sim-style NFL football. So, using all the licenses, create something different, something that can greatly magnify stick skills, and when something goes awry, it isn't automatically compared to the real thing.

Gameplay engine would be the highest priority as that impacts all modes. The new sim style would roll out at the same time and would be used for all game modes (with tourneys played on reduced penalty settings).

Mode enhancements would follow (franchise and MUT) and then the additional modes (new comp mode and new season mode) added.