Madden NFL 16 News Post

Madden NFL 16 Introduces a New Mode: Draft Champions

06:59 PM - June 15, 2015 by ChaseB

EA is just releasing a deluge of official blogs, this one in particular being the Draft Champions blog. I won't steal all their thunder as you can read about it at your leisure, but here's the general point:

Quote:


	Having identified the challenges, we asked ourselves �What is the core fun of Fantasy Football that will work for Madden?� It is pretty obvious: Making the pick. Choosing the player that is going to carry your team. Draft night is the best part of Fantasy Football. The goal of Draft Champions was giving players draft night over and over again.

Our Take: At the end of the day, it's a middle-ground between Ultimate Team and doing a full-on Fantasy Draft like you would at the start of your Connected Franchise mode. It seems to be a very light time commitment in the grand scheme of things, which seems to be the aim. I think it personally speaks to those people who like the idea of Ultimate Team but don't like the grind. Or on another level, those that like Ultimate Team but more like just changing out their players all the time.

You go through 15 rounds and can upgrade a base team that is pre-drafted for you. The players you choose from each time will be random, so there's no guessing how many chances you will get to take an upgraded QB and so on. This is especially important because it's not like a regular fantasy draft where the best players go in Round 1 and you're picking up scraps by Round 15. Instead, it will rise and fall throughout the draft.

At the end, in the "solo" version you try to win three games in a row against better and better CPU teams -- one loss knocks you out. If you play a multiplayer version, it appears you're trying to win four games in a row without losing. If you do lose, your team vanishes and you draft again. I would assume here that by winning the "championship" would gain you more in-game currency that can be used in Ultimate Team -- but that's just a guess.

Source: Madden NFL 16 Feature Deep Dive: Draft Champions (EA Sports)

Game: Madden NFL 16Reader Score: 7/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / PS4 / Xbox 360 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 24 - View All

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Member Comments

# 21 Sheba2011 @ 06/16/15 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charter04


	I like this mode. I know the franchise purists can't stand this kind of stuff but, I will enjoy it I'm sure. Maybe it's my age and the fact that I have 3 kids with one on the way that make me enjoy modes that require less time investment.

I am a "sim first" franchise purist but I love this addition. I love to take my CFM's 20 years down the road and develop my players watching them grow. Franchise mode will always be my first love. But some days I just want to kick back with a 6 pack and a pizza and play some football without having to worry about my star QB getting hurt or my third string RB fumbling again. Usually that was done with play now games but this adds a new level of easy pick up and play games.

# 22 raysanti @ 06/16/15 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayD


	I really wished they would of concentrated on CFM rather than giving another MUT type game mode. Looks like this is the age we are in now.

At this point, it is what it is.

# 23 pjburrage @ 06/16/15 03:52 PM

I'm wondering if this mode could be the way back into the multi-player one console type of gameplay from previous generations. Imagine 8 players each drafting a team, and then competing in an knockout tournament within this mode.

# 24 FreeGordon12 @ 06/16/15 03:54 PM

"The community says gameplay needs an overhaul? Nah, throw a pointless "draft champions" mode in! They'll love it!"

# 25 Sheba2011 @ 06/16/15 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeGordon12


	"The community says gameplay needs an overhaul? Nah, throw a pointless "draft champions" mode in! They'll love it!"

As a whole the community is loving it. The Madden community extends far beyond this site (even though several us are excited for this mode). As for gameplay judging by the blogs this year has seen a lot of improvements to gameplay.

# 26 The JareBear @ 06/16/15 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FreeGordon12


	"The community says gameplay needs an overhaul? Nah, throw a pointless "draft champions" mode in! They'll love it!"

In fairness, I am pretty sure they have completely different teams working on stuff.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong but I don't think adding this mode took away from gameplay resources.

Again, maybe I am wrong though

# 27 fballturkey @ 06/16/15 05:21 PM

I mean, 1000 foot macro view yes doing something like this takes away from resources that could have gone to other things. People worked on this that could have worked on other stuff, or the salary of the people that worked on this could have paid the salary of people doing other things. In reality it isn't that simple which is why the "why did X get worked on but unrelated Y didn't?" arguments usually go poorly.

Edit: If on the other hand the money/time they spent doing this is expected to bring in enough new sales to 'pay for itself' while the other work they could have done wouldn't have been expected to then no, one didn't take away from the other.

# 28 TexasFan2005 @ 06/17/15 10:19 AM

I'm usually an offline-only player that hates MUT-like modes with random players and unrealistic teams, but I can see myself playing a lot of this online.

# 29 Aggies7 @ 06/17/15 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charter04


	I like this mode. I know the franchise purists can't stand this kind of stuff but, I will enjoy it I'm sure. Maybe it's my age and the fact that I have 3 kids with one on the way that make me enjoy modes that require less time investment.

I am one of those that have said since the implementation of MUT that I was not happy with time being wasted on MUT that could have went into improving CFM.

But from all I have seen and heard about this mode I like it and am actually excited to play it. This will add a great deal of replay value and a great mode to jump in and play as a change up to my CFM.

# 30 fballturkey @ 06/17/15 01:51 PM

It also probably wasn't a super hard add. Setting up the drafting UI might have taken some extra time but there's no new in game stuff to add (besides one stadium they chose to) and no CPU AI stuff except for building the CPU teams. The cards were already made since I think they're just using MUT cards. Overall I think giving people that don't like the microtransactions and stacked teams in MUT a way to play something similar was worth it.

I'll be surprised if there aren't any microtransactions though. 16th round, draft two in a round, etc.

# 31 DeuceDouglas @ 06/17/15 02:00 PM

This isn't a mode I see myself playing that much at least this year. Just doesn't really appeal to me. I wouldn't mind seeing it evolve into a NFL Fever like fantasy challenge. I remember spending a lot of time playing that.

# 32 The JareBear @ 06/17/15 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Smif


	Is this single player only? Can it be played online? I would love to do a live online Fantasy Draft with other real people and play through a single season with them.

They said you can play against other users draft champion teams. It would be cool to draft against other players too

# 33 Rocky @ 06/17/15 09:22 PM

I like the premise....it just seems half-***ed to me though.

I would love to see two modes for this:

The default mode: Same as what we know and what is produced.

A full blown mode: You get to create uniforms, play in leagues and tourneys, and draft against other players.

# 34 jpdavis82 @ 06/17/15 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Smif


	Is this single player only? Can it be played online? I would love to do a live online Fantasy Draft with other real people and play through a single season or tournament with them.

It's designed to play online against friends. When I played we had a online tournament it was a blast! I should have been in the finals but Shop beat me😜

# 35 Sdcgg81 @ 06/19/15 12:30 AM

To the people worried about how much time and resources went into this, I will say it was probably very little at all. This "new" feature was debut a few years ago as like a sub game in the mut mode called Draft Duels. Only difference was you had to purchase "draft packs" in order to play. It lasted maybe two days before they shut it down, was just a logistics nightmare as you opened the pack, got your players. Then it would crash and you would lose the players and the pack wasn't refunded. It was completely unstable, and they never relaunched it, but it looks like they have just removed the purchase pack part of it so if it runs like **** again, oh well lol. Looks fun though, if it works like it supposed to, it will be fun for me.

# 36 jpdavis82 @ 06/19/15 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rocky


	I like the premise....it just seems half-***ed to me though. I would love to see two modes for this: The default mode: Same as what we know and what is produced. A full blown mode: You get to create uniforms, play in leagues and tourneys, and draft against other players.

Rex addresses this in the same interview where he talks about cfm as a player. He said they wanted to see how people like the mode and if it's a success they will add to it in the future.

# 37 Sheba2011 @ 06/19/15 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rocky


	I like the premise....it just seems half-***ed to me though. I would love to see two modes for this: The default mode: Same as what we know and what is produced. A full blown mode: You get to create uniforms, play in leagues and tourneys, and draft against other players.

The intent of this is to be just a quick play mode where you can jump right in and play with your friends in tournaments. If they started doing the "full blown" it would just be MUT all over again, and would probably cannibalize the sales of MUT.

# 38 bloobloouk @ 06/19/15 07:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpdavis82


	It's designed to play online against friends. When I played we had a online tournament it was a blast! I should have been in the finals but Shop beat me😜

JP - Can you actually select who you play online against? I love the idea of playing this against some of my friends in an evening while we wait for others to play their CFM game!

I was under the impression that it only worked with matchmaking. If we can select our opponents then I'm even more excited about this new mode.

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