Madden NFL 22 Franchise Mode Gridiron Notes

[Steve_OS]

Plenty of additional Madden NFL 22 Franchise Mode details have been revealed today in the latest...

Written By: Steve Noah

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[scitychamps87]

Lots of good stuff in here. The staff management, increased availability of stat tracking and information on your matchup in the front ends of the menu are really nice! The new scouting system reminds of the EA NHL series. I'm a little bummed I'll have to restart a franchise, but that's ok. I like that league history now covers the entire Super Bowl era. I like the cinematics for the scenario engine, as the text conversations were entirely too stale in the past. I also am encouraged by the fact that they are putting XP on more of a backburner compared to dev traits and the scenario engine. I am still very concerned about star players regressing too early and the staleness of the "news" throughout franchise. Storylines are important in the NFL. While I think this year is an incredible step in the right direction and you will be able to be highly immersed with respect to your own team, we still need more on storylines throughout the league to put the icing on the cake. Overall, well job done, EA! I'm excited to get my hands on Franchise mode this year!

[canes21]

Good stuff in there. This is all a solid start, but EA has to execute it well AND continue to build onto it moving forward. They cannot lapse and be Old EA who adds 3 new features and never touches them again for 4 cycles before changing them completely or just scrapping them altogether.

This new staff system has unlimited potential. Flesh it out EA. Go crazy with it. Give us staff budgets, contracts, etc. Give coaches their own schemes. Compliment the skill trees with coach ratings that dictate their abilities to adjust in game, gameplan during the week, their play calling tendencies, their preferences between athleticism and intangibles, youth vs experience, better rated players vs the hot hand, etc.

This progressive fatigue system sounds awesome. How can it not be turned into a wear and tear system? That would be an insane missed opportunity if that wasn't the goal. I love what they described. If you run your RB into the ground he won't have much energy moving forward, he will be slower, etc. Workhorses will actually be a thing now.

Expand on this. Give the CPU the ability to adapt on the fly and rest players dynamically. Up 14 in the 4th and have a big game or short week coming? Start resting starters, rotating in more role players. Clinched the 1 seed? Sit the starters in your final game.

I want to see the wear and tear return better than ever. I want to see a player has knee issues that devalue them. I want the CPU to see these injury histories and make appropriate decisions. The CPU would be at a severe disadvantage if they saw a 88 overall RB with massive knee issues, but they weren't programmed to acknowledge the issues. I want to see that RB lose value and become a player a team takes a chance on. A perfectly healthy RB that has the same skillset should be worth more and be harder to obtain.

I also like the idea of players starting games off with their abilities on and it potentially remaining on all game. Some players enter the zone for weeks at a time. Some guys just have stretches where they played their best football ever for 4 games. This helps represent that. I really hope the CPU has this happening as well and we are able to be notified of it.

I want the CPU safety to be an X factor that is in the middle of a hot streak and he starts the game off activated already. I'll know from the start to avoid him at all costs. This gives the teams and players more personality.

EA has plenty that sounds good on paper right now. They have a great foundation to build off. They need to finally do that. Prove the focus on franchise is real. I love that they are starting to go into the sides of football that make the sport so fun. Staffs have big impacts on teams. They're laying a foundation there. Football is a game that wears on the body big time. They're representing that grind now. Games are won during the week, just played on Sundays. They're going down that hole with game planning. Keep all of these focusses and expand on them in the future.

They are finally adding things to the mode that actually represent football, represent the nitty gritty, represent the grind, the X's and O's game, and things that do that and still sound fun. Keep this focus, expand on it continuously. Do that and you'll rival 2k as the best franchise mode for a console sports game.

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[jfsolo]

For folks who don't have the time or inclination to listen to all the podcasts this is the must read. As someone who did listen to them all I wasn't as surprised as some others will be, but there are a lot of new small little QoL changes and tuning that will enhance Franchise, a lot, IMO of course.

[khaliib]

Although not fully implemented in the Beta, got a taste of the revamped Draft Logic with AI Trade request in the 2nd Rd, was nice to see trigger, kind off caught me off guard cause I had never consider trading at that point of the Draft.

I sent Swami a Tweet for clarification on the ratings boost because we all know that on Sim Delta plays a role in outcome triggering and in many cases, unless things have been tuned differently for M22, impactful on-field ratings changes needed larger pt increases.

Ex:
STR rating that impacts blocking timer needed a 20+ pt Delta to see an on-field difference.

With 1-7pt increases (STR is one of the Staff Tree gains) how will these actually matter if using the same previous Delta thresholds in some aspects?

Looking forward to Franchise

[mestevo]

A lot to look forward to digging into this year.

Something about the staff stuff still feels like a placeholder to me, probably from my hope that the feature will be replaced by something bigger in 23 when they're also shipping a college game.

[canes21]

Quote: Originally Posted by mestevo

A lot to look forward to digging into this year. Something about the staff stuff still feels like a placeholder to me, probably from my hope that the feature will be replaced by something bigger in 23 when they're also shipping a college game.

It's hard for me to not think this isn't a feature for both games. I see no way CFB doesn't have a carousel return and I see no way that if that is the case that Madden doesn't get the carousel as well.

It looks like a feature that was built with the future in mind with how modular they've said it is. Being modular allows them to adjust it for each game and see additions onto it more easily.

I'll be very shocked if CFB doesn't have this system with a carousel and if Madden also doesn't get the carousel as well.

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[kennylc321]

Nope, nope, nope... but buying it. Here is my biggest issue with below. When you play Madden 21, every game you will get a "boost" for, say, calling cover 2 defense or against inside runs or whatever.

But when you are actually playing the game, do you really FEEL that boost? I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I don't. This seems, to me, a bit cosmetic. It's a nice in concept but when you are actually playing the game, you're really not going to FEEL this concept.

Sorry that I am always the negative one, but I am very suspicious about this.

"The Offensive Gameplan would be very similar to the Defensive Gameplan in how it looks and how it is set up. However, instead of looking for a way to slow down an opponent’s strength as you did for your Defensive Gameplan, you can look to choose a focus and attack an area that is more susceptible. For example, one of the Offensive focuses is Run Inside, and when you look at the Bucs’ defensive stats from last year for this, you will see that they were excellent at stopping the inside run. Because of that, you would want to shift your focus onto something that they are not as effective against. Their team stats can also help point us in a good direction by informing us that they were among the league’s best in sacking the quarterback, but they were below average in pass yards allowed. With that in mind, we can key on the Throw It Short Gameplan Focus to get the ball out of your quarterback’s hands quickly to slow down their defensive pass rush.

The Offensive Gameplan Focuses are:

Run Inside
Run Outside
Throw It short
Throw It medium
Throw It Deep
Blitz Counter"