Madden NFL 10 Franchise Mode Improvements

[DJ Rhude]

Sounds good...especially liked reading that if a player has a good season he will progress accordingly....that makes it worth putting in the time to groom a 65 ovr player you may see potential in

It annoyed me in the past that I'd put up great stats with a young guy and he wouldn't progress one point

Not so sure I like the hard rule that ALL running backs who reach the age of thirty will go downhill fast.....I'm hoping that there's room for some flexibility there because you do have some players who are an exception to that and maybe don't start declining until they turn 32 or so

Nonetheless, I am encouraged by where this game seems headed

[DSpydr84]

Not impressed. I'm looking through the bullshit this year, no more buying into the hype.

Nothing like starting a blog with the word "foundation". That's great, EA. You had 3+ years to build your foundation on the next-gen, but I'm glad you're starting now. Better late than never, right? For some, this reads "the start of something special". To me, it says "another year of underachieving". But there's always next year.

We’re also focusing on the re-sign player stage, making sure that teams intelligently decide whether to keep or release their upcoming free agents. If a team cannot afford to re-sign a player, he’ll become a free agent. It’s that simple.

Glad to hear players are now testing free agency instead of just signing right away. It used to annoy me that the players had no say in the re-signing period. /sarcasm

The other big thing we’ve looked at so far is everything surrounding the Draft....

As for the scouting, Madden 09 could not have put out a worse feature. So as far as I'm concerned, this is not about improving, it's about perfection. I know you can do BETTER, prove to me you can do it RIGHT.

The other features of the draft - like the bust/sleepers, draft logic, etc. - I give two thumbs up. This is the direction the game should be heading.

We have been doing quite a bit of tuning on the NCAA Import Draft classes, as we saw a lot of feedback on the forums regarding this area in general.....

Are there busts/sleepers factored into this as well? The fact that it wasn't mentioned leads me to believe that it's not.

Finally we get to progression.....

We added more stat categories to determine a player’s success/failure for a season.

I don't really care for the idea of progression being directly related to stats, although I can't think of a better way to do it. I could see that influencing the way I call a game, or tinkering with the quarter length because my running back isn't up to "par" with his rushing attempts and I don't want him to digress (and heaven help me if he's 30).


All in all, this is a great start in the right direction. But that's all it is: a start. The last three years are being washed out completely, and who knows what the next three years will bring. You guys know more than anyone, there are plenty of things Madden can do RIGHT NOW to make this game more effective. Bottom line: I'm sick of hearing about how next year's Madden will be better... my question is, will it be good?

[killgod]

Bottom line: I'm sick of hearing about how next year's Madden will be better... my question is, will it be good?

That should be everyone's thinking every year with this game.

[DNEUM]

DSpydr, I totally agree that Madden has to be GOOD this year, not just getting better and again having to look forward to next year like you mentioned.

But I do want to just remind you -- and everyone else for that matter -- that this is only the beginning of April. Any other year, we'd have absolutely ZERO solid info on the game. We'd have a release date, the fight for every yard theme, and the rest of the other very broad things mentioned in that press release. None of the stuff they're doing right now is for hype. It's basically to give the hardcore fans these little tidbits of info that in other years never would have been mentioned, rather than nothing at all. None of the major improvements/features/whatever is going to be announced until post-NFL Draft with the biggest stuff likely being saved until like the month leading up to release. That is when they will start to build their hype.

While we all share the same concerns I think as far as wanting a better game and not wanting a bunch of fluff, I wouldn't start with the "this is going to be the same shit as Madden 07/08/09" until we actually start getting the real info on the big changes/additions. As he stated in the franchise blog, this is just the start, they have several more franchise blogs lined up. I guess the point is, the concerns are definitely warranted but don't overreact to these blogs we're getting right now, they're just the little things that we wouldn't have normally been told.

[Aso]

The dude that was talking in the blog was the guy that was in charge of the PG franchise mode. PG franchise mode was awesome. Plus if you look at all the features that Head Coach had, because he's coming over from there too, i expect franchise mode to look nice this year. Can't wait for the bigger improvements for franchise mode and Madden 09 in general.

[Woy]

I'm really excited after this blog.

[adembroski]

Are there busts/sleepers factored into this as well? The fact that it wasn't mentioned leads me to believe that it's not.

...

NCAA Import Draft Class tuning

We have been doing quite a bit of tuning on the NCAA Import Draft classes, as we saw a lot of feedback on the forums regarding this area in general. Here are a few of the changes:

• Added the 5 new QB ratings (Throw on Run, Play Action, Short Accuracy, Mid Accuracy, Deep Accuracy). Since NCAA Football does not have the new ratings in their game to use as a base, we will be using Throw Accuracy for the 3 Madden Accuracy ratings. For Throw on Run, we take a combo of their Speed + Throw Power. For Play Action, we use a combo of Awareness + Throw Accuracy.

• Tuned the import draft class feature to be more superstar based. The community feedback matched our own in the feeling that were too many superstars coming in from NCAA. There was not much of a difference from the 1st Round Picks to the 5th round picks. Nearly all the players were 75+ OVR rated and we felt like that was too high for your average draft picks. We have tuned this quite a bit to ensure that the elite guys will still be elite, but you should expect the middle and lower round guys to be rated much lower in Madden 10 (with a few gems buried in there as well).

It was an offhand mention at the end, but I think it's saying that he's building that in as well. The draft classes Josh built for HC09 were awesome. I've got a lot of faith that this aspect, at least, is going to be outstanding.

[TeflonDonny]

There was only one thing that worried me about the blog.

One nice addition that we were able to take from Head Coach was how we handle the rookies in the Draft. We now create every rookie by hand, just like you saw in NFL Head Coach ’09. You might even see a few famous rookies make a re-appearance from those drafts.

I want a little more in depth info on this. Head Coach was/is great but it bothered me when the same exact player came from the same school every year only with a different name.

Everything else sounded good to me.

[j.hen]

What AI? Meaning, what aspect of AI are you talking about? I'm assuming the player on-field AI, because yes, it did, or maybe the playcalling AI, which had it's issues but was far better than anything Madden ever did... I'm just hoping you're not talking about the CPU Team Management AI, which is the best I've ever seen in a sports game.

I'm obviously talking about the on the field AI

[adembroski]

Update from Josh

Wanted to check in with you guys and clarify some points from yesterday's blog.

First...Potential and Progression.

Lots of good feedback from you guys on the potential rating being visible vs. hidden.

Would you rather see something like a letter grade? A lot of other sports games that show potential show a letter grade (like MLB the Show) instead of a hard number. That would still give you an clue about why a player is not progressing but not give too much away. I'm not promising that I can do this, but if that's an acceptable alternative, I'll see if I can get it in there.

Another thing to think about that I didn't mention in the blog was that we also set a minimum overall rating for each player. That will be HIDDEN. What this allows us to do is ensure that players like Fred Taylor and a Tiki Barber type back never drop below a certain overall rating. For example...Peyton Manning's minimum overall rating is currently a 92. That means he'll still play at a high level even when he gets a little bit older. Some players will have a much lower minimum overall rating and they'll drop once they get older and less productive.

Second...Premade Rookies.

Premade rookies have had a huge impact on franchise mode so far and it's mainly for one reason...game balancing.

When players are randomly generated, it's impossible to know what you're going to get. You could get 40 players with 99 potential or no players with potential greater than 75. In the case of the latter, that many players with huge contracts would have a devestating effect on the salary cap in future years. Using Premade draft classes solves all of those issues.

There's also massive problems with ratings (remember when you'd draft a WR who had 99 speed and 65 acceleration? ) and you get some weird stuff with how players look on the field. Strange facemask/gear combinations, etc. Creating these guys by hand makes them like just like their NFL teammates, which makes the game much more realistic and authentic.

We're very aware of the possibility of repetitiveness, also. To combat that, we're not using the Head Coach system of predetermined draft class order. We're randomly grabbing one class when you start your franchise and you'll get a random draft class every year after that. We built in logic to make sure that you never get the same draft class twice in the same franchise. The chance that you'll see that one player that some guy is talking about on the message board is slim to none. I've started franchise after franchise while testing and I never get the same classes. Hopefully that helps clear up some of the confusion.

The premade draft classes also finally make scouting worthwhile. In the past, the randomly generated players were ordered by overall rating prior to the Draft. That meant that you never got sleepers in the later rounds or busts in the first round. No matter what, you always drafted a player in the top 10 with an overall rating somewhere around 85. This year is all about realism and authenticity and the changes we've made to the draft make it as close as it can be to what happens in real life. Sometimes you'll draft Ryan Leaf if you haven't done your homework. Other times you'll find that diamond in the rough that can turn your team around. That's the beauty of the NFL and I think it's going to make a world of difference in franchise mode this year.

Guys...I love the feedback. Keep it coming. It's great to see passion like this from the fans that love franchise mode as much as I do!

One more thing...let me know if you'd rather see a number for potential or something more ambiguous like a letter. I like how that works in games like MLB: The Show and I'm curious to see what you guys think.

Link if you wanna respond.

[1ke]

Any upgrade will be an improvement though. It cant get any worse.

[Aso]

I don't know. What would you guys prefer, A letter or a number? I have no clue which one i would want.

[TeflonDonny]

letter grade. I like not knowing exactly when my guys hit their peak.

[BigBiss]

im a big fan of head coach were it seems each player has a rating for each team.

so if my scouting department sucks and a guy has peacked they still think hes awesome.

[krulmichael]

Definitely like that set a minimum overall that a player can drop to, think that is a good feature as well. I think I'd rather have a letter grade instead of a number as I don't like knowing exactly when my player has peaked.