How to make Madden more realistically difficult

[Jimbo12308]

Hi All,

So I just posted most of this in a different thread to make a point about using coach suggestions for playcalling, but it started to get me thinking. Do you guys have any particular methods to make the game difficult and yet realistic against the CPU?

I have a number of methods - so perhaps this could be a helpful resource/suggestion, but also I'm curious if anyone else have any methods other than the ones I've described below (I'm always trying to find new ways to make the game realistically challenging).

Gameplay:

Maybe this year will be different, but I have always struggled to make the game difficult enough while also keeping it realistic. I always play on All-Madden and use sliders (especially a slightly adjusted version of Jarodd21's) to make the gameplay difficult yet realistic. Unfortunately, even with those settings the only time I ever lose games are if I jack up the CPU interceptions slider and turn down the human throw accuracy so I am forced into throwing 3-4 picks every game, which I hate because it is so unrealistic.

The way I try to remedy this is by handicapping myself in other ways to create a challenging yet statistically realistic game. I play no-switch on defense, I don't control my WR's catch attempt (I only control them after they have made the catch), all on-screen aides are off, I super-sim my field goals so that there are misses, I never call audibles or make offensive adjustments at the line, if the cpu makes a clock management mistake I call a timeout for them, I decline penalties against the CPU, if I have a significant WR speed mismatch I adjust my WR depth chart order to help the CPU (so that their faster corner is covering that WR), and most importantly I never call my own plays - especially on offense. I don't even choose between the coach suggestions with the exception of run or pass. I decide before the playcall screen if I want to run or pass and then when the coach suggestions come up I am limited to either the first run or the first pass - no matter what they are. Additionally, I always switch the coach suggestion type to "strategy" because the other sections include community suggestions (which are often cheese/always effective plays) or the most frequent play calls, which also occasionally become narrowed down to plays that often work well. The "strategy" section has the least amount of human-influence.

I don't usually have to get that crazy on defense. Stopping the CPU offense can get pretty tricky on higher difficulties - but I have never found offense realistically challenging at all unless I limit myself in these ways, and I find the playcall limitation to be the most challenging (I just LOVE it when I get a Play Action deep threat call on 3rd and 1 or a HB draw call on 3rd and 6 when my HB has a 2.1YPC going for that game).

These are the only ways I know of to make the game challenging without adjusting sliders to the point of unrealistic absurdity (high numbers of turnovers, impossibly difficult running game - like 1-2YPC averages, etc.)



Franchise:

In franchise, I increase the difficulty by only doing trades through the trade block (both for targeting players and trading away my own - if I don't get offers I either keep or release the player). Also, I limit myself to only 3 attempts at doing a trade with the CPU so that I can't incrementally figure out their lowest price (since you can lowball offer the CPU infinitely without any repercussions).

This might be different this year with the 1st scouting trait now the most expensive, but in the past I've limited my scouting to every 4 weeks so that I lose a number of points and thus can't scout so thoroughly.

When I draft a player I close my eyes so that I don't see their ratings immediately after drafting them (which is unrealistic). This way, I won't know if they are a bust or not until later, so I won't know whether or not to draft another player to fill that need.

I haven't done it before, but this year I'll also be doing tubasimulator's training camp which involves ignoring/not looking at ratings and instead testing players in practice mode to decide the depth chart. In addition, I'll also be purposefully adjusting my preferred player types in the coach schemes page to be the opposite of the types that I actually want (such as "mobile QB" when I actually want a "pocket passer") so that the overall ratings of my own players, free agents, and trade block players will be unreliable.

I try to simulate realistic offensive line injuries (because they can't get injured during gameplay) by removing one or more of my starters from the depth chart for a certain number of weeks.

I only use my coach's playbooks.

This is a silly personal preference thing, but I also limit my player selections in free agency/trading to players without off-field issues. I research all members of my team as well as any that I want to pick up and if they have a poor off-the-field behavior I either release/trade them away or don't pick them up. No Greg Hardy's for me.


That's about it. Hopefully that can be helpful to someone and I would love to hear any further suggestions to increase the difficulty of the game without doing anything totally unrealistic.

[underdog13]

I usually just keep tuning the sliders to provide a challenge. House rules really kill the fun for me.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[Jm0ney2001]

I just play on all madden default if it's too easy at that point it's time to move on

[D81SKINS]

With Cpu custom PBs and gameplans!
This is a MUST for franchise user vs cpu!

Good info to Custom PBs and the how to link here
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-dskins81.html

[NYG 98]

Have awareness affect the camera. It's the only way to make ratings really matter for user controlled players.