Madden NFL 16: Fixing CFM - A Case Against Confidence And Drive Goals (Part 1)

[RaychelSnr]

Chase Becotte checks in today to talk about why he believes Confidence and Drive Goals mess up game balance and hinder Madden 16's CFM mode.

You can check out an accompanying article on this from Bob Kollars.

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[IcedCoffee1983]

100% agreed.

I hate how so many of my players end up at 99 confidence by week 8, how it NEVER resets at the beginning of a new season, and how confidence in general makes the game "play different" in CFM vs Play Now mode.

Also, the fact that CPU teams don't benefit from Drive Goals in any way is just plain silly. This game is already too easy, why make it easier by giving me extra Confidence and XP boosts that the other 31 CPU teams in my league have no chance of earning?

They did this same thing with that "practice mode" in "Madden 25" where you got a 2,500 point XP boost for doing practice each week, however CPU teams never bothered to do practice all. (oopsies!) So over the course of the season my Human controlled team had opportunity to earn all this XP that CPU teams would never earn. And now with Drive Goals... same thing... I earn all this XP that CPU teams can't earn. Just silly and poorly thought out.

What's the fix? In Madden 25 it was "don't use practice" so you won't overpower CPU teams ... and in Madden 16 it is "use Booker21's method to turn off Drive Goals" so you won't overpower CPU teams... I'm sick of having to find workarounds to avoid their bright "ideas".

You know it's bad when gamers find ways to turn off your "new features" year in and year out.

(New features, as is often the case with Madden, which are poorly thought out)

Remember the year they had the bright idea of adding in UDFA's? And the CPU team AI was cutting 1st and 2nd round picks to keep some of these 55 OVR Undrafted FA's? And they had those spikey shoulder pads? Gosh what a nightmare that was... Another example of a neat idea not at all thought through.

I shudder to think of what new flashy feature they will implement next year...

Also... Auto-Subs within CFM mode remain broken since 2012. And EA is either un-aware or doesn't care to fix auto subs now for 4 about years. But they continue to take the time to add new features each year and expand MUT, while basic features like auto subbing in CFM are totally broken.

*sigh*..... don't get me wrong this is one the best Maddens to date, but what they choose to add in, while leaving other things broken each and every year, is really confounding.

[urlacher51]

great video, couldn't agree more. I find myself just playing play now games and not playing CFM that much if at all. I hope in the next patch there is some kind of fix for CFM with drive goals and confidence being toned down alot or being able to turn it off.

[Sphinx]

1 Million times agree! Chris, you hit the nail on the head. I love cfm, I really do. But so much time is being wasted on enhancements that nobody asked for. Drive goals? What? Why? I mean if I have Aaron Rodgers of course I'm going to try and pass for a touchdown. Why is that a drive goal every drive? Why can't more focus be put on cutting down money plays,cheese plays or otherwise game breaking nonsense that we all see every year.

CFM can be really fun but if you're like me and many others, you don't have the ability to play in a 30 person online league. Even if I did, I like playing many games at a time and most if not all leagues have set days for advances. So, why can't us single player cfm guys finally get the focus back on us? We all as consumers are equally as important as each other. For some reason, whether it's the tired argument of no competition or just plain laziness, Madden for me takes 2 steps forward in one area and like 10 steps back in another. The gameplay this year is quite good, but that's compared to last years game and the year before that. When will the game get back to where we look at it and are truly blown away by not just visuals but by the total package. Everything being top notch! I look to games like NBA 2k16 that push the ideas that other sports franchises should be using.

Maybe next year cfm will be revamped yet again, but at what cost. The gameplay may suffer, the visuals might, who knows what the answer is.

[booker21]

I have to agree 100% hopefully EA take a look at this, just love the video. Specially how he mentioned that Play now gameplay give you a totally different experience than CFM game.

If CFM games plays like play now this game would be GOLDEN.

Drive goals need to go, and confidence need to be more balance, most players on a team should be betwen 40 and 60 no more, since that is the normal. even on SB teams not every player plays above their normal, that´s for ratings.

[dkp23]

EA thought this was a great idea to have real time progression during the season, but was implemented poorly.

First last year if you were an average or poor team, you are heading close to 0 confidence and very quickly. This created a huge imbalance when a good team played a bad one, it gave virtually no shot to the team with the lower conifdence in winning as they would be hit with a ton of random overthrows, drops, bad defense.

Fast forward this year, now it is pretty easy to go up in confidence and not as easy to go down. so verage teams will be able to stay within reasonable levels, but a good team will be 99 almost across the board. Still an imbalance, a godo team will continue to get a huge advantage.

the drive goals? kill it, simple.

[The JareBear]

There has to be a better way to implement real time progression. I don't think it should involve forcing/influencing how a user plays his game and I also wish it was more than just stat padding based as well.

[deezycobain]

i think drive goals should be an array of options within coach or owner mode... i like the idea of drive goals and confidence as long as it works well (going up or down)

would be cool aspect, if as coach u could choose from diff drive goals as the game progresses, seeing as we are the coach we should be able to pick and choose what we think fits best or would be best....

not sure if i explained that well enough, but i do entertain the idea just wish it could be implemented better