Madden NFL 17 injected freshness into the series after years of malaise, earning a deserved four-star rating from GR+. But with Super Bowl 51 committed to the history books, fans are already looking towards next season, and ways in which the wily veteran can once more be made to feel young again. Here, then, are 11 improvements which would take Madden 18 to the next level, curated from the best fan suggestions across forums and social media.
1. Editable draft classes
EA’s partnership with the NCAA was punted into oblivion by way of a 2015 lawsuit regarding player likenesses, meaning we’re stuck with fictional draft classes for the foreseeable future. That’s a shame, but it shouldn’t be unsalvageable. Take it away, texashomeboy.
“Madden lacks actual draft classes for franchise mode. They have done a great job with coming up with generated players, but it just isn’t the same with not having the college rookies come up into the NFL in your franchise. I have a solution. One thing that NBA 2K does really well is draft classes in their franchise mode. You can still use generated ones that are created by NBA 2K, or you can download a class from the community creations. This allows for amazing, authentic NBA draft classes. Madden needs to steal this idea. If you give the ability for people to create prospects and build draft classes, and allow the user to download it before the season starts, it would make franchise that much more fun. It would be amazing to do a 49ers franchise and build my team around DeShone Kizer, instead of random generated QB out of Stanford.”
2. Running back committees
It’s very rare in the modern NFL that any team uses one running back throughout the majority of any given match, but Madden still utilises that antiquated approach. It means there’s no simple way to emulate, say, the Chiefs’ ride-the-hot-hand time share, where (when fit) Jamaal Charles, Spencer Ware and Charcandrick West all get carries during an afternoon’s play.
Cch99 from Operation Sports has potentially found a neat way to resolve this.
“How about add a halfback sub percentage screen somewhere for Play the Moments, or even CFM,” he writes. “Basically, give each HB a sub % and have the game auto-sub based on that, instead of fatigue. Even if they don't get a carry, they get plays on the field. Let’s say you set it to ‘HB1: 60, HB2: 30, HB3: 10’. HB1 gets six plays straight, then HB2 gets three, then HB3 gets a play.” It’s not the most nuanced of solutions, but would at least stop AI teams wheeling the same ball carrier out there until fatigued, rather than adopting the committee approached prevalent across the modern NFL.
3. Historic seasons
Long, but good, one this – so straight over to UFCMPunk from Operation Sports: “Here’s an idea I had for a new way to play Franchise Mode. If you haven't seen the N-"if"-L videos on NFL.com, Dave Damshek takes a situation in NFL history and talks how things would be different if it didn't happen.
Within this mode, you'd still play the normal 30 years but through an alternate universe. When you select Franchise, you'll have the regular options but a new option called N-"if"-L. You select a year to start and now you're in that year. Let's say you select 2012 and want to re-do the Peyton Manning chase. Take the Cardinals and bring him to Arizona. Or do the same at Tennessee, or take over the Colts and keep Manning in Indianapolis.
Maybe change history and start the 2002 season as an expansion team from Toronto or LA – it'd allow you to choose any team and start over. After completing free agency and the draft, you now play the 30-year Franchise from whatever year you started in and can re-write NFL history.”
Complex, sure – but isn’t that what next-gen sports gaming should be?
4. Unlimited relocation choices
The mid-‘10s have seen significant upheaval – in a very literal sense – throughout the NFL, with the Rams, Raiders and Chargers all finding new homes: the former in Las Vegas, the latter pair in LA. Yet while relocation features in Madden 17, it does so with severe restrictions. (For instance, there are only 18 possible places to move your team to, and Vegas doesn’t make the list.)
Toupal from Operation Sports suggests some very simple ways the option can be upgraded: "[More options for] the city, name and colours, stadium and uniforms; expansion teams; and the ability to upload and download logo designs’. The latter element is especially important for anyone who uses Jaguars in franchise mode, in order to presciently transform them into the London Big Bens come 2021.
5. True home-field advantage
The Chiefs’ Arrowhead stadium holds the world record for crowd noise at 142.2 dbA; little wonder Kansas City has only lost six regular season home games in three years. Seattle's CenturyLink Field is similarly intimidating. Home-field advantage has more bearing in the NFL than any other sport, with away sides often unable to hear audibles and snap counts beneath the din of the crowd. Yet in Madden: nothing.
“Make home field advantage actually mean something,” writes Operation Sports poster servo75. “For example: high crowd noise reduces or removes your ability to audible and go no-huddle, or causes more false starts.” This worked brilliantly in the old NCAA games, also made by EA, where the lines showing receiver routes were obfuscated when you played as the away team in a raucous stadium. If the worry is influencing online matches, then also provide the option to turn home advantage off; but at least make it a thing in offline, and franchise, play.
6. Improved clock management
This year’s Super Bowl was won and lost on clock management, with Atlanta repeatedly – and stupidly – gifting New England more time by snapping the ball with :20 still on the play clock. And towards the end of games, Madden’s AI teams are just as unfathomable in this area as the fallen Falcons.
“I was up by 10 points late in the 4th quarter vs the CPU,” writes blogger texashomeboy1. “With about three minutes left, the CPU started the drive with a quick pass over the middle, casually entered the huddle and took their sweet time to get up to the line to snap the ball. Before you knew it, only two plays had been run, the two-minute warning had hit, and the CPU was still only at its own 40. This simply doesn’t happen in the actual NFL. Teams recognize that, when down multiple scores with a just few minutes left, that they have to go as quickly as possible. If they were to take their time and wait until after the two-minute warning to pick up the pace, then they probably aren’t going to have the opportunity to get the ball back.”
This has been an issue for years, and it’s about time – forgive the pun – it was rectified. Just maybe without the aid of Kyle Shanahan and Matt Ryan.
7. Off-the-ball injuries
Often the worst possible kind of injuries in the NFL – such as knee ligament tears, or ruptured achilles tendons – are caused off the ball (and therefore, to the fan at home, off camera), but such knacks are seldom seen in Madden. That might add to the sense of fairness online, yet it detracts from the authenticity of franchise mode, where even the occasional accidental career-ender should rear its ugly, straight-to-the-CAT-scanner head.
“We need more off the ball injuries, and animations that represent them,” says Art871 on the EA Forums. “For instance, players being carted off the field, walking off under own power, or being helped off by players/medical staff.” No gamer wants to see their star wide receiver knocked out for the season by something out of their control; but equally, no gamer wants to go 1-15, like Cleveland did last season. It happens in real life, so should feature in the game.
8. A whole new ball game via Frostbite
I haven’t credited any single poster for this one because it’s something suggested by everyone, everywhere. The switch to Battlefield's Frostbite engine, mirroring a move FIFA made last year and confirmed during EA’s January conference call to investors, is unlikely to transform the game on a genetic level. Yet from a visual standpoint it has the potential to comprehensively enhance the just-like-being-there experience.
Madden’s running animations have never quite looked natural, which is an immersion killer: that should change with the switch to an engine built on authentic cosmetics. Improved weather effects, more life in players and coaches on the sideline, and better material dynamics – in MLB The Show numbers truly look like they’ve been printed onto jerseys, and that’s the benchmark EA should be striving for – are all tantalising possibilities with the switch to Frostbite.
1. Editable draft classes
EA’s partnership with the NCAA was punted into oblivion by way of a 2015 lawsuit regarding player likenesses, meaning we’re stuck with fictional draft classes for the foreseeable future. That’s a shame, but it shouldn’t be unsalvageable. Take it away, texashomeboy.
“Madden lacks actual draft classes for franchise mode. They have done a great job with coming up with generated players, but it just isn’t the same with not having the college rookies come up into the NFL in your franchise. I have a solution. One thing that NBA 2K does really well is draft classes in their franchise mode. You can still use generated ones that are created by NBA 2K, or you can download a class from the community creations. This allows for amazing, authentic NBA draft classes. Madden needs to steal this idea. If you give the ability for people to create prospects and build draft classes, and allow the user to download it before the season starts, it would make franchise that much more fun. It would be amazing to do a 49ers franchise and build my team around DeShone Kizer, instead of random generated QB out of Stanford.”
2. Running back committees
It’s very rare in the modern NFL that any team uses one running back throughout the majority of any given match, but Madden still utilises that antiquated approach. It means there’s no simple way to emulate, say, the Chiefs’ ride-the-hot-hand time share, where (when fit) Jamaal Charles, Spencer Ware and Charcandrick West all get carries during an afternoon’s play.
Cch99 from Operation Sports has potentially found a neat way to resolve this.
“How about add a halfback sub percentage screen somewhere for Play the Moments, or even CFM,” he writes. “Basically, give each HB a sub % and have the game auto-sub based on that, instead of fatigue. Even if they don't get a carry, they get plays on the field. Let’s say you set it to ‘HB1: 60, HB2: 30, HB3: 10’. HB1 gets six plays straight, then HB2 gets three, then HB3 gets a play.” It’s not the most nuanced of solutions, but would at least stop AI teams wheeling the same ball carrier out there until fatigued, rather than adopting the committee approached prevalent across the modern NFL.
3. Historic seasons
Long, but good, one this – so straight over to UFCMPunk from Operation Sports: “Here’s an idea I had for a new way to play Franchise Mode. If you haven't seen the N-"if"-L videos on NFL.com, Dave Damshek takes a situation in NFL history and talks how things would be different if it didn't happen.
Within this mode, you'd still play the normal 30 years but through an alternate universe. When you select Franchise, you'll have the regular options but a new option called N-"if"-L. You select a year to start and now you're in that year. Let's say you select 2012 and want to re-do the Peyton Manning chase. Take the Cardinals and bring him to Arizona. Or do the same at Tennessee, or take over the Colts and keep Manning in Indianapolis.
Maybe change history and start the 2002 season as an expansion team from Toronto or LA – it'd allow you to choose any team and start over. After completing free agency and the draft, you now play the 30-year Franchise from whatever year you started in and can re-write NFL history.”
Complex, sure – but isn’t that what next-gen sports gaming should be?
4. Unlimited relocation choices
The mid-‘10s have seen significant upheaval – in a very literal sense – throughout the NFL, with the Rams, Raiders and Chargers all finding new homes: the former in Las Vegas, the latter pair in LA. Yet while relocation features in Madden 17, it does so with severe restrictions. (For instance, there are only 18 possible places to move your team to, and Vegas doesn’t make the list.)
Toupal from Operation Sports suggests some very simple ways the option can be upgraded: "[More options for] the city, name and colours, stadium and uniforms; expansion teams; and the ability to upload and download logo designs’. The latter element is especially important for anyone who uses Jaguars in franchise mode, in order to presciently transform them into the London Big Bens come 2021.
5. True home-field advantage
The Chiefs’ Arrowhead stadium holds the world record for crowd noise at 142.2 dbA; little wonder Kansas City has only lost six regular season home games in three years. Seattle's CenturyLink Field is similarly intimidating. Home-field advantage has more bearing in the NFL than any other sport, with away sides often unable to hear audibles and snap counts beneath the din of the crowd. Yet in Madden: nothing.
“Make home field advantage actually mean something,” writes Operation Sports poster servo75. “For example: high crowd noise reduces or removes your ability to audible and go no-huddle, or causes more false starts.” This worked brilliantly in the old NCAA games, also made by EA, where the lines showing receiver routes were obfuscated when you played as the away team in a raucous stadium. If the worry is influencing online matches, then also provide the option to turn home advantage off; but at least make it a thing in offline, and franchise, play.
6. Improved clock management
This year’s Super Bowl was won and lost on clock management, with Atlanta repeatedly – and stupidly – gifting New England more time by snapping the ball with :20 still on the play clock. And towards the end of games, Madden’s AI teams are just as unfathomable in this area as the fallen Falcons.
“I was up by 10 points late in the 4th quarter vs the CPU,” writes blogger texashomeboy1. “With about three minutes left, the CPU started the drive with a quick pass over the middle, casually entered the huddle and took their sweet time to get up to the line to snap the ball. Before you knew it, only two plays had been run, the two-minute warning had hit, and the CPU was still only at its own 40. This simply doesn’t happen in the actual NFL. Teams recognize that, when down multiple scores with a just few minutes left, that they have to go as quickly as possible. If they were to take their time and wait until after the two-minute warning to pick up the pace, then they probably aren’t going to have the opportunity to get the ball back.”
This has been an issue for years, and it’s about time – forgive the pun – it was rectified. Just maybe without the aid of Kyle Shanahan and Matt Ryan.
7. Off-the-ball injuries
Often the worst possible kind of injuries in the NFL – such as knee ligament tears, or ruptured achilles tendons – are caused off the ball (and therefore, to the fan at home, off camera), but such knacks are seldom seen in Madden. That might add to the sense of fairness online, yet it detracts from the authenticity of franchise mode, where even the occasional accidental career-ender should rear its ugly, straight-to-the-CAT-scanner head.
“We need more off the ball injuries, and animations that represent them,” says Art871 on the EA Forums. “For instance, players being carted off the field, walking off under own power, or being helped off by players/medical staff.” No gamer wants to see their star wide receiver knocked out for the season by something out of their control; but equally, no gamer wants to go 1-15, like Cleveland did last season. It happens in real life, so should feature in the game.
8. A whole new ball game via Frostbite
I haven’t credited any single poster for this one because it’s something suggested by everyone, everywhere. The switch to Battlefield's Frostbite engine, mirroring a move FIFA made last year and confirmed during EA’s January conference call to investors, is unlikely to transform the game on a genetic level. Yet from a visual standpoint it has the potential to comprehensively enhance the just-like-being-there experience.
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