After a full season of CC, I'm Disappointed

[rodgers135]

As someone who has bought the Madden every year since 04, and mainly played it as a football sim, I'm probably going to return it for the first time and go back to 12.

After getting through the fact that there was no fantasy draft, I sucked it up and decided to be the coach of a mediocre team; Try to turn them around. I picked the Bills. The first thing I noticed was all the, "XP Boosts" and player progression, which seems to have a lot of flaws. If I pick a rookie, and he has average stats, how is he supposed to reach his full potential? He can't gain XP on the sidelines, even though he'd be getting better by listening and learning from coaches and players. If he plays, he'll probably do average and earn average XP. The previous game's progression system was more logical.

I simm'd practices, auto-progresed players after manually doing it for a couple weeks, and ended up making the wildcard. It was fun to read the tweets, but some of them started getting repetitive and scripted. I went to sign a FA, but couldn't see his past teams, which made me somewhat irritated (had to look them up online). I did enjoy the scouting system, but I still think it could be improved.

I played every playoff game, winning them all, including the Super Bowl. I liked the game-play, but the commentating was horrible. I don't know how anyone can say this commentating crew is the best when they make so many errors. On a clear drop in the end zone by my wide-open TE, I hear, "Great coverage on that play." Then, I run the ball, pick up the first (barely) and hear, "And now they'll have to punt." There are numerous others I could point out, but I'd have a page long list. I thought the crowd sounded more realistic though.

After winning the super bowl, I progressed through the off-season, only to experience how dumbed down it is. Every player wants more than the default offer, so you always have to raise your offer (even though my coach type is making people want to sign with me). On top of that, I couldn't bring up their statistics from the 're-sign' screen, making more work for myself. You also have to wait a week, which really serves no purpose. In FA, I never heard back from the players I made offers to, only to find one had signed with me while two others hadn't. I progressed to the draft, having to listen to Trey Wingo rant about generic info of players I simulated past to get to my pick. After 7 rounds, there were still loads of 4th and 5th round WR's/CB's/ and DT's for some reason. I would imagine some team needs those positions.

It then signed my rookies for me, all to 4 year contracts, even if I wanted to cut one instead of sign them. To cap it all off, at the start of the next season, I get greeted with a Tweet saying, "Bills didn't draft a QB, what are they thinking?!?!" and a news feed message with, "Bills bad performance of late can be related to the QB." That's great to hear, especially since I just won the Super Bowl with Ryan Fitzpatrick who was the Super Bowl MVP and made the pro-bowl the previous season; It's all scripted garbage.

After that, I don't have the motivation to continue my CC. They'll probably start letting you buy "XP" packages and DLC for money, and show their true reason for revamping everything. If this is the future for Madden, I'm not sure Madden will be in my future.

Edit: Didn't expect this thread to get this big, but one thing I've seen is the, "Don't bash it without offering advice for fixing" complaint, so I gladly did so. I put it in another thread since it's quite a bit:

[JJJones135]

Yeah I'm really torn between returning the game and just going back to madden 12 who's gameplay is only not as good as madden 13. I only bought madden 13 for better gameplay and I thought that the franchise mode would be back but no it isn't. Connected stupid careers is down right awful it has good little details but the big picture is way off. If it would have madden 12's import draft class and franchise mode best damn madden ever but it doesn't it's the worst madden in years in my opinion because they took away what they had already excelled at. EA is f***** up company anyway

[Theylie]

Dont worry, once the license expires, madden will die just like nba live has. NBA live is gonna be a $20 downloadable game only this year. 2k has and always will be a better dev team than EA.

[Farmer joe]

Quote: Originally Posted by rodgers135

They'll probably start letting you buy "XP" packages and DLC for money, and show their true reason for revamping everything. If this is the future for Madden, I'm not sure Madden will be in my future.

I never though of it that way, especially since I dont purchase any DLC, but that does sound about right lol. Like those games for the iphone that are cool, and free, but soon enough you find out the only way to really progress is to buy stuff from their shop (DLC).

[JJJones135]

Quote: Originally Posted by Theylie

Dont worry, once the license expires, madden will die just like nba live has. NBA live is gonna be a $20 downloadable game only this year. 2k has and always will be a better dev team than EA.

EA's only decent game is NCAA football 13. No one is ever gonna go back to live after playing 2k unless they're on crack. madden has so much potential but EA finds ways to screw up and I'm tired of this ****. I also wished the camera angles and graphics were the same as NCAA 13 it would be sweet

[RedZoneD25]

Your issue of progression of lower-rated players was because those who don't see the field on gameday gain XP in Practice, which you stated you simulated. This isn't an issue of the game, it's just you not wanting to practice.

You could say that you feel that the bench players aren't given enough XP, which we could then turn into a constructive conversation to provide feedback on, but as it is it's just gamer stubbornness.

[JJJones135]

Quote: Originally Posted by RedZoneD25

Your issue of progression of lower-rated players was because those who don't see the field on gameday gain XP in Practice, which you stated you simulated. This isn't an issue of the game, it's just you not wanting to practice. You could say that you feel that the bench players aren't given enough XP, which we could then turn into a constructive conversation to provide feedback on, but as it is it's just gamer stubbornness.

don't attack your buyers. Where's the franchise mode.?

[freemanbomb5]

I'm dealing with issues with CC mode offline as well. As much as I hated that I immediately sold my midnight purchased copy of NCAA b/c of no longer being able to play as and recruit stud high school talent and get them drafted into the NFL I was already kinda shaky about this new CC mode. After finding out there were no fantasy drafts I really started having my doubts. I still gave this years Madden a chance only to be disappointed.

I played a year as the Bucs in CC coach mode offline. I'm in year two and there have been numerous bugs that I can't ignore. I experience freezes at the most inopportune times, I found the draft and offseason modes to be not as much fun (especially drafting fake rookies the Curtis twins CB and FS both go undrafted and rate in the low 80s) as compared to drafting real life studs like Matt Barkley.

In year two I have found that if you screw up and provide to low of an offer that your guys will refuse to even speak to you. Josh Freeman and Mike Williams apparently won't negotiate long term contracts which would give them each adequate raises?! Then when I have over $15 million in salary cap space they tell me that I don't have enough money to make an offer to Myron Lewis a scrub corner 71ovr for like 900k?

Completely disappointed with this purchase and just want the old franchise mode back desperately.