Press Row Podcast Episode 136: Madden NFL 16 CFM Deep Dive

[roadman]

3 year plans, new people in charge, people that crossover from MLB, etc.... This forum needs new material, taking out stuff and replacing stuff and calling it new haha, jk.

This is all legitimate complaints.

If the game play isn't improved greatly from 15, I may need to curtail one of my habits and spend more time with other habits.

I'm leaving it up to game play this year because as I mentioned in another thread, and it's not something that the hard core want to hear, but almost 2 years ago Rex mentioned he wanted to flesh out what was wrong currently instead of quickly adding new features on top of the legacy issues.

To me, this sound like a pattern continued by Kolbe, so, I'm patiently waiting to hear and SEE game play in motion.

It's tiring because it's a looooooooooooooooong time coming.

[StefJoeHalt]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpdavis82

At the very beginning of the blog it mentions this is just the beginning for CFM. Kolbe has a lot of things planned for the future. This year CFM seems to be, based on what we've seen so far, a necessary overhaul in ui and tuning to try to lay a much better foundation for CFM in the future. I'm a little disappointed so far too, but I want them to make sure things are done properly first before they add a bunch of new stuff.

JP i truly hope ur right..cause it appears to me the internal part of CFM (auto subs, sliders, settings) are extremely tied to Main Menu..if this all can be fix I will be ok with calling this year a wash for CFM..however the same can not be said for gameplay!

edit: do the Dev's know how tied up the sliders etc are with the Main Menu? Have they acknowledge this?


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[Gosens6]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

3 year plans, new people in charge, people that crossover from MLB, etc.... This forum needs new material, taking out stuff and replacing stuff and calling it new haha, jk. This is all legitimate complaints. If the game play isn't improved greatly from 15, I may need to curtail one of my habits and spend more time with other habits. I'm leaving it up to game play this year because as I mentioned in another thread, and it's not something that the hard core want to hear, but almost 2 years ago Rex mentioned he wanted to flesh out what was wrong currently instead of quickly adding new features on top of the legacy issues. To me, this sound like a pattern continued by Kolbe, so, I'm patiently waiting to hear and SEE game play in motion. It's tiring because it's a looooooooooooooooong time coming.

I think what the problem is, everyone believes since MLB's gameplay is so good, the franchise mode must be deep and immersive and everything we've ever asked for in a franchise mode. I'm here to be honest, it's not.

The only way I can describe it is the way some of you describe Madden, a bunch of exhibition games for multiple seasons.

No in season contract extensions, ridiculous trades that hardly ever include minor league players.

A somewhat pre determined progression system, for awhile almost always based on a players potential rating (which, if I can recall correctly, would never change based on performance when Kolbe was in charge there, it was just implemented this year)

Nothing really felt organic In the mode. The in game ticker was awesome, as was the mentioning of broken records, hitting streaks and things like that.

But it's as if after the season, everything is forgotten. No mention of last years champions, no rivalries, no anything to make each season unique.

Along with a barebones amateur draft, and bugs that made it impossible to play multiple seasons in the mode, such as pitching dominating so much, it becomes almost useless to sim games, because league wide averages would be so low and unrealistic.

I don't want people to think this is a bash Kolbe or mlb the show post, because that's not what it is, all it's meant to convey is that one person from a studio that excels in gameplay, will necessarily give us what we want in a hardcore franchise mode, at least not this year and maybe not the next.

Who knows, maybe he can prove me wrong, maybe it will come ore naturally to him how to program the nfl and bring us the real life drama of the season, playoffs and offseason whether we play as the owner, GM Or coach. All three should provide a unique nfl experience that really brings us into the game.

With everything they're missing, and the direction it looks like they're going with making things too too simple, subpar AI decisions, not giving us fundamental coaching aspects, an making this entire thing revolve around XP. I play sports games, not rpg games for a reason. We don't even get a real news ticker? We get a goals and XP ticker box. Ok.

I don't know guys, this has gotta be it for me. The maybe next year game is getting old, I'm getting old, and to me, I'll never get the real franchise mode that I want.

[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Based on this podcast, the old UI was clunky and quite daunting for anyone who had never played CFM to the point of scaring people away. They want to get more people playing CFM, and making it easier and less intimidating to navigate and streamlining how to do the most important actions is one important way to accomplish this goal. I had problems with the old UI as well in that it made finding actionable information very difficult. Among the things that were present in CFM last year, the UI was actually one of my biggest gripes (it's my contention that most roster management interfaces for all team sports games have a lot of room for improvement, but that's neither here nor there). That they improved it will help anyone playing the mode get in and out of games faster, manage their roster faster, draft faster, and ultimately get more games into a CFM.

I agree that the UI was pretty bad, but that brings us to a topic I try not to discuss because of the sensitivity, and that is the competence of the team. It seems we get into a pattern where they introduce something, but it is designed poorly so they then have to correct/redo it. So instead of actually building anything they spend more time correcting things.

It sucks for me because I am a franchise guy at heart, but gameplay wise Madden is the best it has ever been at.

[4thQtrStre5S]

One of the big issues I hope to see fixed in M16 is that the system actually implements the 60 calculations per second, or whatever was originally stated; pardon my error if I miss quoted the advertised ability..

The lingering issue I experience is the inability to grab control of a player when you switch players; there is too much tendency to be stuck in an animation and you cannot do anything in time to try for a play..

[IndyColts2]

It's always next year with Madden. "This year we focused on the broken things from last year, and next year we'll give you what you all want." EA's way of avoiding to build a great game is by "fixing" things in the past that people "complained" about and calling it a "new game."

What's hilarious is that each year EA talks about wanting to give users more "accessibility," mainly for the casual "pick up and play" people. Yet they claim they get their information on what people want off of their message boards on EAsports and here. How do they know what the casual pick up and play people want if they literally are just pick up and play guys and not die hards? If they cared how "inaccessible" the game was they would voice their opinion on these boards would they not?

So what I'm saying is that Madden is a cycle of promises and lies. Instead of adding formation subs outside of gameplay, they changed how we view player attributes to look oddly similar to MUT cards (and they say that's not the reason why). Instead of adding an in-game "NFL ticker" that shows you scores and stats of games from around the league in your CFM, they add a damn ticker showing you what goals THEY set FOR you IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GAME. How does this make any kind of sense?? They legit could make goals tie into team/NFL records as well as player records based off of what round they were drafted in. For example,

it's the year 2000 and QB Tom Brady is drafted in the 6th round. His goals for his rookie season would be simply to start a game. 2nd season he's thrown into a game due to an injury to starting QB Drew Bledsoe. The in game "dynamic goal" should now be to not turn the ball over and help seal the win or something. The rest of the season his goals should change to "have a TD:INT ratio of 1.5:1" or something.

I'm gonna put Madden 16 in and I guarantee you my Colts in-game "dynamic goals" will be to run for 125 yards instead of telling Luck to throw for 3 TDs.

[kehlis]

This thread is about a deep dive into CFM, not an open forum to complain.

I suggest you guys stick to the topic.

[IndyColts2]

Sorry, I'll stick to the topic. This Madden 16 "deep dive" into CFM is disappointing to me because in my opinion the team could have improved the mode by a lot more than what they have managed to do. Will some of these features be very helpful? Of course they will, especially in my realistic Simulation Style CFM with the Sim Champions crew. However, I believe that EA Sports could have done much much better. Maybe next year will be better lmao.