Madden 2010 News Post

Madden NFL 10 Franchise Mode Improvements: Part 2 Q&A

04:57 PM - June 16, 2009 by turfguy23

EA just posted part 2 of their Madden NFL 10 Franchise Mode improvements Q&A.

Quote:


	"I�m Josh Looman, senior designer for Madden NFL 10 and the guy who had the privilege of tuning franchise mode this year. I thought I�d sit down and answer a lot of the questions I�ve received about franchise mode and the changes we made this cycle. As I�ve mentioned before (in this blog), my goal was to clean up the logic and get this mode back to where it needed to be. I�ll repeat my favorite analogy for those of you who haven�t heard it before: If you found out you had termites in your house, would you build on another addition or clean up the foundation so that you could build on the house in the future? That was exactly our attitude and my sole focus since I joined the Madden team halfway through the development cycle. I enlisted the help of one of my top programmers from NFL Head Coach �09 (Jeff Keyek) and worked with the rest of the Madden team to address many of the core aspects of the mode that really needed fixing."

Game: Madden NFL 10Reader Score: 7.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 76 - View All

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Member Comments

# 141 afro_dogg20 @ 06/16/09 10:34 PM

Nice blog, really looking foward to playing the game.

# 142 K_GUN @ 06/16/09 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJenness


	I get the feeling you are wrong on the 1st bolded part...read some of the devs replies to HONEST critical feedback, and I get the feeling many times they think we should be falling all over them for being here. 2nd part, I could not possibly agree more. But, many people here don't see it that way...I think many of them really think Ian and crew are here ONLY because they want to give the OS members this great favor of a good game. The truth is, especially after the debacle that was the previous crews game, Ian has heat on him to produce....to turn this franchise around, so he can keep his job, feed his family (if he has one), and pay his mortgage, period! And he is held accountable by the SALES numbers, they are what determine (for EA) how successfully he has done his job. Not bashing him, just telling it the way it is....business is business, period.

the thing is...if Ian gives the consumer (read not just OS'ers) a good/great product the sales numbers will naturally follow suit, right?

he 'leans' on OS because only we care about hand towels/cleat colors/LB placement in the 3-4 and how things should look

OS...a free consulting firm....at EA's disposal for no money at all...i'd say a brilliant decision...wouldn't you?

# 143 Jono078 @ 06/16/09 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canadeion


	This is the only part of that whole disaster of a blog that really makes me happy... the fact that he admits this year isn't going to be FANTASIC, but they are laying the ground work for future franchises. Although it's the same song and dance as every year, the old 'wait-til-next-year' routine... I have a feeling that with this development team, it's actually legit... Just a shame he couldn't take more time to honestly answer more than those bare-bones generic questions. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't have a question in there like 'Q: How many weeks are in an NFL season in Franchise Mode?'

Yeah but IMO they've done a whole 360 turn on that analogy..

Hear me out..

To fit that analogy, wouldn't they have been better off to fix OFFLINE franchise 100% and then build online next year?

This year they've gone with the both features and both are probably only half done, or half of what they good be for lack of a better term.

Then again I was in the minority against online franchise.

# 144 Step2001 @ 06/16/09 10:45 PM

I don't understand why I.R. was not fixed. That's been rittled with termites since last gen days.

(shakes head)

# 145 roadman @ 06/16/09 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canadeion


	You're right, but we ARE a large portion of the Madden customers who CARE, and enjoy the game enough to research it, and find out what's going on, and try to contribute. We are the ones EA SHOULD be catering to. The ones who are the dedicated customers. The ones who REALLY enjoy the work these guys do every year. Not the ones who buy the game, play a season, then let it collect dust for the next 3 years until they want a new one. If EA spent more time listening to the die-hards, and not throwing in cheesy crappy new game modes to try and attract borderline gamers, we'd have an awesome game buy now, and not so many hardcore Madden fans on the fence about buying it every year.

Agree with everything you said except for the 1st sentence. There are customers who purchase Madden on a yearly basis outside of the net who care too. I witness that with 35 customers at midnight at Game Crazy the last 2 years and they are the same people.

# 146 MrNFL_FanIQ @ 06/16/09 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Canadeion


	You're right, but we ARE a large portion of the Madden customers who CARE, and enjoy the game enough to research it, and find out what's going on, and try to contribute. We are the ones EA SHOULD be catering to. The ones who are the dedicated customers. The ones who REALLY enjoy the work these guys do every year. Not the ones who buy the game, play a season, then let it collect dust for the next 3 years until they want a new one. If EA spent more time listening to the die-hards, and not throwing in cheesy crappy new game modes to try and attract borderline gamers, we'd have an awesome game buy now, and not so many hardcore Madden fans on the fence about buying it every year.

The unfortunate thing, each of those borderline guys who play it for a week and love the cheesy features are worth the same dollar amount as us diehards. They don't get money based on how long you play, just if you buy.

Not that they shouldn't be focusing on that (before someone starts to flame me) They are a business. The number one goal of all businesses is to make a profit so they can stay alive.

# 147 JeriousNorwood @ 06/16/09 10:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ewto16


	I'll assume you can't move LBs to DEs.

Did you ever realize you can edit your player and change his position to DE? You can do that in '09.

# 148 PacMan3000 @ 06/16/09 11:09 PM

Is there a way for OS to create a franchise mode forum? I'd love to have a centralized place where we can all write about the progress of our franchises and post updates...maybe even pics and videos, etc.

# 149 droopizzle34 @ 06/16/09 11:09 PM

has anyone heard anything on whether or not you can change teams after a season? i am SOOOOO missing this feature!!

# 150 mikeveli20 @ 06/16/09 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by droopizzle34


	has anyone heard anything on whether or not you can change teams after a season? i am SOOOOO missing this feature!!

Doubt it's in. I've been trying to find this out for awhile now. I PM'ed Donny and Josh and didn't get a reply about it from either. There has been several threads in the last month or two about people wanting this as well, but no word from the devs. Not so much as an acknowledgment that they know we want it, which would be fine by me if they did because then I'd at least know it would probably be in Madden 11.

# 151 MJKiehl680 @ 06/16/09 11:54 PM

There was one thing I loved from 2K was they had photos for rookies. Itll be boring having an entire team of blank people. Not a huge complaint and im very impressed and excited

# 152 PantherBeast_OS @ 06/17/09 01:27 AM

A decent set of questions. I guess we will find out ourselves bout what offseason is about in madden when we get it in a few months. Thats for the answers

# 153 cowboy_kmoney @ 06/17/09 01:34 AM

It sounds good Josh,But did you guys at least add to fran-mode when players win the superbowl will it say in there awards? Because all you see is how many probowls that person has,Why not add how many superbowl they have won while in our fran-mode.? This way it would help when we are lookin for real team leaders for our team. PLEASE ADD THIS TO FRAN-MODE.

# 154 skudplayr @ 06/17/09 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheCreep


	Man, I hate to break it to you like this buuuut.......the small # of Madden gamers on this site, in actuality ARE NOT the diehard dedicated Madden heads if ya really think about it. If anything, folks such as you, me and many others on this site are actually the fairweather fans, sitting up here crying talking about you're not going to spend a measly 60 bucks because the players shoestrings dont come untied when they run. The other couple of million folks buy this **** every year faithfully. Hell, them nuts even thought Madden 06 and 07 were great games. THEY are the diehards, not us. Well, I do consider myself diehard, but I didnt purchase 06 and 07, so I have a little bit of fairweather fan in me also. Now as far as the topic to this thread, I think the additions are great, and with the 32 hand made draft classes AND the NCAA import classes, I'm seeing damn near endless entertainment on the way here soon.

I personally thought Madden 06 and 07 for old Xbox were great games. For 360...not so much haha.

# 155 glitch3d @ 06/17/09 01:37 AM

All I really wanted from franchise mode is the logic (FA, Draft, CPU subs, RB splitting carries, fatigue.. etc) to be fixed and the presentation of games to feel authentic (especially playoffs and Super Bowl). If that's in, which they say it is, then I'm set really.

A better FA mode too, I was getting really tired of offering 50 people contracts and then rejecting JUST so the CPU will pay attention to them. Apparently the salary cap has been fixed (God, I hope) so we won't be seeing some outrageous releases. (Like Tom Brady, AD, Peyton Manning and having them rot in the pool for years)

With all that, I'm set.

I'd really like to know If Imported draft classes gets the same treatment as Josh's though. I don't mind using Josh's, but I can't avoid the realism from draft classes.

# 156 skudplayr @ 06/17/09 01:39 AM

It's not going to be the Franchise Mode we all loved in the mid parts of the decade, but it's a start.

# 157 Nza @ 06/17/09 02:13 AM

I still can't see how a mere 30 odd inbuilt classes is a good thing. I'll be shocked if repetition isn't an issue. Why not just have a pool of thousands of prebuilt rookies, and then have the game randomly pick them for each class while also scrambling names and slightly modifying some attributes randomly like weight, height, age etc, i.e., not rating attributes. Put some code in that tries to keep the random class balanced if need be. Something like this would effectively be a class generator really.

Or why not just make an engine that generates rookies? I still don't understand why this idea was abandoned. What's weirder is Ian said he applied all these formulas in a spreadsheet to make some prebuilt rookies. Why can't those formulas be used in-game to generate them? Rookie classes of last gen Madden were alright. Even better when using a certain editor for the PC version to apply some custom formulas on them

I guess if repetition is an issue it will at least mean I like the gameplay and other parts of franchise mode enough to play the game significantly, but still, just baffling to me.

# 158 MattIntellect @ 06/17/09 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nza


	I still can't see how a mere 30 odd inbuilt classes is a good thing. I'll be shocked if repetition isn't an issue. Why not just have a pool of thousands of prebuilt rookies, and then have the game randomly pick them for each class while also scrambling names and slightly modifying some attributes randomly like weight, height, age etc, i.e., not rating attributes. Put some code in that tries to keep the random class balanced if need be. Something like this would effectively be a class generator really. Or why not just make an engine that generates rookies? I still don't understand why this idea was abandoned. What's weirder is Ian said he applied all these formulas in a spreadsheet to make some prebuilt rookies. Why can't those formulas be used in-game to generate them? Rookie classes of last gen Madden were alright. Even better when using a certain editor for the PC version to apply some custom formulas on them I guess if repetition is an issue it will at least mean I like the gameplay and other parts of franchise mode enough to play the game significantly, but still, just baffling to me.

# 159 monzel214 @ 06/17/09 02:49 AM

Franchise i hope they have 2 players for franchise mode beside one player cause it boring

# 160 ewto16 @ 06/17/09 10:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeriousNorwood


	Did you ever realize you can edit your player and change his position to DE? You can do that in '09.

Sure, and then their ratings drop...

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Madden NFL 10 Franchise Mode Improvements: Part 2 Q&A