Let Me Upgrade You: Madden's Online Franchise Mode

Feature Article

Submitted on: 02/22/2011 by TD St. Matthew-Daniel

As you guys already know, the Franchise mode in Madden 11 was pretty much no different than that of its predecessor. If "simpler, quicker and deeper" described most of Madden 11, then "stale, unchanged and the same" was still the name of the game for the Franchise mode.

Luckily, EA Sports is prepping for another season on the gridiron, and an updated Franchise mode is said to be part of the game plan. With that in mind, here are four upgrades I hope make the final cut for Madden 12’s Online Franchise mode.

The Surprise Onside Kick

Let's kick things off with the new surprise onside kick (SOK) that has been announced for Madden 12. The word out of EA is that the SOK will be limited to one attempt a game. However, there needs to be more regulation for a franchise mode. My suggestion is to give the league commissioner the option to choose how many SOKs each team can attempt throughout a season. Personally, anywhere between two or three attempts for a whole season would be fair and realistic. This way the league commissioners and fellow users never have to worry about teams exploiting this new gameplay feature.

The Draft

This was actually one of the few areas that was changed up a bit in Madden 11’s Franchise mode. However, change in this case was not a particularly good thing.

Even if you played your franchise on the "slow" setting, things were sure to get out of hand because of a ridiculous amount of speed at various positions. These players, or as a fellow league player calls them, the football version of Space Jam’s Monstars, are exciting to play with at first, but when a handful of middle linebackers are capable of effectively defending the deep route then something is not right. It's almost like Al Davis was consulted in the creation of these draft classes. I’m all for there being a gem or a freak of nature in every two or three draft classes, but keeping players’ attributes realistic helps maintain a good level of simulation football. Speaking of players’ attributes…

Player’s Potential Rating

This is another aspect of Madden that could use a little tweak. The current potential system is pretty decent, but a little more variety could help. I would like to see more highly rated players that turn out to be JaMarcus Russell and Ryan Leaf-type busts, and a couple late-rounders with the potential of a Tom Brady or a Miles Austin. Such a tweak would make the draft more realistic and much more interesting, especially in the later rounds.

The master mind behind the Madden 11 draft classes?

Injuries

No pun intended, but this is an area of Madden that has really been hurting these past few years. The curse of the broken collarbone has been toned down a notch, but there’s still a ways to go in making this aspect of Madden more realistic. Every team should have an injury report with players listed on it before every game. All you fantasy fanatics out there know how crucial an injury report is before Sunday kickoffs. The current Madden injury report only shows the injury type and how many weeks the player is out for. “Doubtful,” “questionable” and “probable” status updates are non-existent. Owners in a franchise should be provided such information on a weekly basis, coupled with the option of suiting up a banged up player -- except Jay Cutler of course.

Franchise needs more draft-day steals.

Team Management and User Friendliness

The NFLPA will not be fans of this, but I want more power in the hands of owners in Madden 12’s Online Franchise mode. Most online franchises take about three days in real time to advance from one week to the next. Such a fixed schedule leaves users no way to practice or get better with their franchise roster. Practice modes or perhaps even scrimmages against other users would be a welcomed addition in the online franchise world. Lastly, an upgraded companion website is a must. The lack of options and the unreliable draft client needs to be addressed so users can always be in control.

Those are my recommended upgrades for the Online Franchise mode in Madden 12. What would you like to see added to your franchises?

TD is an Operation Sports basketball and soccer writer. Atlanta-born and Nigerian-raised, TD has been with Operation Sports since September of 2008 and is also a digital media producer and video editor for NFL.com's digital media. You can follow him on twitter @mrsimcity.

Madden NFL 12 Videos

Member Comments

# 1 1WEiRDguy @ 02/22/11 03:32 PM

If i still played madden, those would have been some nice improvements for me...good article though

# 2 dmanzano @ 02/22/11 03:51 PM

If i still played madden, those would have been some nice improvements for me...good article though (2)

# 3 labguy @ 02/22/11 04:05 PM

Those ideas are ok but you are missing the most important ones: ability to trade draft picks, a salary cap, and free agent bidding system.

Now if you want ideas beyond those must haves then might I suggest the ability to hire and fire coaches and coordinators. You may ask why this is necessary. Well I would suggest that instead of 16 owners in your online franchise using the same playbook that you can only use the playbook of the coach you employ. No more running a 3-4 defense if you have a D-coordinator who runs a 4-3. So EA could use the same code for free agents and a bidding system for coaches as well. Kill two birds with one stone on this one.

# 4 ThunderCat838 @ 02/22/11 04:37 PM

there are some draft steals. example a POT A getting drafted in the 5-6th round. but i get what your saying, the ability to make what ever one says is a POT C and with some extra training and care he can move to a POT A, in time and the sky is the limit. Not setting a limit as it is now...

With that too I believe they need to bring back the training camp drills, that way we have the ability to do this!

# 5 MrSimCity @ 02/22/11 04:39 PM

@labguy

Yes ability to trade draft picks will be welcomed, but whole Draft system in general needs an overhaul. Need to be able to pre-pick in the event a user isn't available for the draft, but as said - my main issue in Madden 11 were the created players themselves and that's the key.

# 6 jyoung @ 02/22/11 05:16 PM

1) Salary cap with free agent market.

2) Practice mode.

3) Correct NFL tiebreaker rules.

4) Custom sliders and every other option that offline franchise mode has.

5) Randomized draft pools instead of scripted. Most people just use the cheat sheets in drafts.

6) Tradeable draft picks.

# 7 falconfansince81 @ 02/22/11 05:42 PM

"Practice modes or perhaps even scrimmages against other users would be a welcomed addition in the online franchise world. Lastly, an upgraded companion website is a must. The lack of options and the unreliable draft client needs to be addressed so users can always be in control."

great idea here, in our sim franchise community we have some leagues that advance every 48 hours like clockwork which leaves little time to become familiar with your squad. we love to lab with each other and this would be a great way to do so (LOVE the idea of scrimmages).

my suggestion as mentioned many times before is a HLTV or spectator server to view other online franchise games...and possible some sort of salary cap to prevent team stacking (not every owner is the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to trading).

# 8 ChaseB @ 02/22/11 06:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wEEman33


	1) Salary cap with free agent market. 2) Practice mode. 3) Correct NFL tiebreaker rules. 4) Custom sliders and every other option that offline franchise mode has. 5) Randomized draft pools instead of scripted. Most people just use the cheat sheets in drafts. 6) Tradeable draft picks.

Custom sliders is my biggest thing for these types of modes. I could not fathom playing in something like a 2K league if we couldn't use sliders.

# 9 mestevo @ 02/22/11 08:34 PM

I'm looking to click franchise, then have the option to do it online or offline... not 2 distinct modes. Other than that I want feature parity between the two, anything less will be disappointing, but will be happy to see steps made toward that goal over the next couple of years and hopefully built in a way to avoid the feature reset seen as new consoles debut.

# 10 ipman @ 02/22/11 09:17 PM

What about fixing the offense and defensive interactions adding user blitzing vs cpu is nice too. Get rid of the high jumping line backers fix the zone coverage and than well have a real football game

# 11 Tyrant8RDFL @ 02/22/11 11:40 PM

I want the ability to use custom sliders. I take this over everything else. What you mentioned is important, but for me #1 is custom sliders.

# 12 MrSimCity @ 02/23/11 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ipman


	What about fixing the offense and defensive interactions adding user blitzing vs cpu is nice too. Get rid of the high jumping line backers fix the zone coverage and than well have a real football game

I agree with you, but those are mainly gameplay fixes. Focus here is making online franchise better

# 13 HARTSTOPPER @ 02/23/11 03:22 AM

1.) Teams need salary caps. Any online franchise i've done we have had to create a system so that users had to release certain categories of players based on overall rating. It would cut out ALOT of time to just add salary cap in to online franchise.

2.) Import stadium upgrades and things of that nature to online franchise. I hated my bye week because I just had to sit there and wait 2-3 days before we would advance. I would like something to do during that period to get me more involved with the franchise.

3.) Speaking of getting more involved. Is there ANY WAY POSSIBLE to not have the same exact draft classes? I
hated that after say a month of the game being out, draft boards with every players overall and potential were released so anytime you wanted to start another online franchise, everyone knew who all the good players were, and I think it might have been one of the biggest killers of online franchise. I know that Importing a draft class from NCAA 11 is out of the question simply because if Madden did that it would defeat the purpose of purchasing the next installment of madden when you could continue your online franchise with actual rosters so any sort of fix for the predictable draft classes would be awesome. One more thing here. Allow us to scout the upcoming draft class so that we are able to fit players into our system.

4.) Presentation - NCAA incorporated ESPN into their game this year, largely due to the fact that most of their games are broadcast on ESPN. This is not the case with NFL games unless it's a Sunday/Monday night game. So I ask that you guys find a way to incorporate either Fox or NBC into the game to give us the "more realistic" presentation we are all looking for.

5.) Allow us to use Custom Difficulty sliders in online franchise. Nothing is worse than trying to play the A.I. on all madden because someone couldn't make a game that week and sitting their helplessly as your 90 overall team is getting pounded by a 3rd string running back breaking 6 tackles every run. With Custom sliders, all of these tweaks could be made and it would allow for a greater experience of realism.

6.) End of Year Awards. Not only can you brag to friends about winning the superbowl, but NOW you can brag that you had the league MVP. Better yet, show off your awesome GM/draft skills by bragging that you have the rookie of the year on your team.

7.) Who wouldn't want to watch two of their friends go at it during the Franchise Superbowl? Add in spectator mode so that we can scout our next opponent or just kick back and enjoy a huge match up for the week. Have friends who are head to head Patriots vs Jets? Who wouldn't want to watch it?

8.) A.I. trade/logic. In the extreme case that a user is not able to be found for an online franchise. Increase the A.I.'s ability to field a decent team through the draft by drafting positions of need. This way, if a user can be found a season later, he won't come to a team where a first round draft pick was spent on a punter. This also goes along with trade logic. If the computer controlled team just lost their starting QB for the season and have surplus at another position, have them engage in trade offers with other teams.

9.) Stat Overlay. During the games themselves, show the stats that the players have accumulated over the season, or perhaps the length of the franchise(if you are 2-3 years into it). When you are sitting on the home page, have stat leaders across the bottom of the screen on the ticker. Have a tab on the home page categorized as Stat Leaders so you can see who leads in Passing, Rushing, Receiving, MVP voting, or even Pro Bowl voting.

10.) That's about all I can think of off the top of my head. I think the online franchise mode is one of the best things to happen to sports gaming. It just needs some tweaking and hopefully all of my suggestions .

# 14 TDKing @ 02/23/11 12:27 PM

Salary Cap, Trade Logic and Custom Sliders these missing items are why I did not buy 11, and what got me very angry with 10 and the Devs

. Oh and who can forget the highly touted server side patches. If these 3 items are not in 12 i'll will probably skip it also. Online Franchise should function like offline franchise! I don't give a crap about SOK

... wow!

# 15 labguy @ 02/23/11 12:46 PM

@ weeman33

"5) Randomized draft pools instead of scripted. Most people just use the cheat sheets in drafts."

I agree with this one. As long as there is a good way to scout throughout the season.

# 16 ridemooses @ 02/24/11 02:02 PM

Assuming there is a league this year these seem like necessary upgrades, I would still like more then you said done with potential factoring in production (stats) to a variable production for players.

I still have no idea why players who are injured and end up playing don't have statistical reductions.

Adding onto this I would love to see a weekly fluctuation in a players stats based on their play, if they are playing well (and are young and inexperienced) their overall increases for that week but has a potential to decrease if they have a bad week. At the end of the year their total performance is evaluated, in addition with off-season improvement and they are given a new set of stats for the next season.

This "rolling" development seems realistic and has potential to be a huge benefit to the Madden franchise.

More Links