Madden NFL 16 News Post

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

01:49 PM - October 20, 2015 by 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.

If you can't see the video above, click here to watch it. Alternatively, check it out on our YouTube Channel.

Game: Madden NFL 16Reader Score: 7/10 - Vote Now
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Member Comments

# 1 urlacher51 @ 10/20/15 03:15 PM

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.

# 2 Sphinx @ 10/20/15 04:59 PM

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.

# 3 booker21 @ 10/20/15 05:05 PM

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.

# 4 dkp23 @ 10/20/15 06:36 PM

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.

# 5 The JareBear @ 10/20/15 07:36 PM

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.

# 6 deezycobain @ 10/20/15 11:46 PM

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

# 7 cedwebb @ 10/21/15 12:53 AM

Confidence: is generally described as a state of being certain either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective. Self-confidence is having confidence in oneself.

So hard to quantify something like state of being and turn that into a driving force behind a football game. Why someone would try is another good question in which only the creators can answer. In my opinion it would be nice to tie in player experience and longevity behind a coaching staff and system and coorilate that to on field awareness and confidence.

# 8 KingV2k3 @ 10/21/15 01:46 AM

I'm somewhat surprised this thread din't get more traction today, but then again, by this point most have decided to "make do or move on" (I'm looking at YOU NBA2k)...

That being said, this series has historically ended up putting their Box Features in the "Ill Conceived and Poorly Executed" category...

Since the gameplay guys raised their game to unprecedented levels with this iteration, I wish the CFM team and the "marketeers" that influence them would at least TRY to keep pace...

"Confidence" and Drive Goals are NOT "sim football", which is what the CFM crowd desires...

Save the daffy stuff for the Fluff Modes or eliminate it wholesale...

#toggleontoggleoff

# 9 Cnada @ 10/21/15 03:19 AM

Why not simplify with some boosts for top performance in the league?

That way it doesnt matter how long Quarters are or how much users are doing really well or struggling. say it with me 'Everything should be relative'

# 10 JimmyT85 @ 10/21/15 08:03 AM

I just wish we had the option to turn drive goals off

# 11 Ueauvan @ 10/21/15 09:02 AM

i am also annoyed at coach exps, i couldnt care and neither could my owner, that i sacked the qb 4 times when i only managed 3. all that matters is the W is it not?

# 12 mlb61 @ 10/21/15 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IcedCoffee1983


	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?

CPU teams have a confidence system very much the same as last year's. In fact, in a blowout win some players can earn double or even triple the typical 4-6 point confidence gain given by meeting Drive Goals.

Good teams (basically playoff contenders) will have most of their starters at or near 99 confidence at the end of one season. If you have a good team with a winning record, you would have pretty much the same confidence levels even if you used the CPU confidence system instead of Drive Goals. In other words, no advantage over good CPU teams.

If you have a mediocre team (near .500 record), you would have some moderate advantage. If you have a really lousy (.300 record or worse), yeah you'd have an advantage -- but if you're a lousy team, that advantage doesn't seem to be doing you much good or destroying "game balance."

I mostly ignore Drive Goals. I think they should be rethought and modified. But the reaction by many has been, in my opinion, akin to mass hysteria.

# 13 Retropyro @ 10/21/15 12:39 PM

Just shut off the drive goals.

# 14 brza37 @ 10/21/15 01:08 PM

Excellent video! 100% agree.

# 15 BadAssHskr @ 10/21/15 01:47 PM

i'm fine with them tuning and tweaking until they get it right. you guys are likely right, drive goals are the culprit, however some system of confidence or what ever they want to call it should be in the game.

perhaps making it more volatile, perhaps toning it down.

i fully believe in football, or sport in general, there are motivation factors that allow players to over perform or get up faster, etc... on the flip side the same factors get players down as well.

it all just needs to work together, so take our online data, reevaluate it, then tune it for optimum representation.

making tweaks or perfecting it isn't admission of poor implementation. we do have the ability to tweak, it should be utilized.

# 16 DeuceDouglas @ 10/21/15 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingV2k3


	I'm somewhat surprised this thread din't get more traction today, but then again, by this point most have decided to "make do or move on" (I'm looking at YOU NBA2k)...

I think part of that as well is that the greatest case possible could be made for this stuff and more than likely nothing is going to change. All they would have had to do to prevent any of this is provide an option to turn it off. Confidence On/Off. Drive Goals On/Off. Boom, done. But they're so heavily invested in goals (and confidence to a lesser extent) that I don't even think that will ever be an option.

IMO I don't think there is any fixing CFM at this point barring another massive overhaul in design and direction. I'd like to wait and see what they have in store next year but after dedicating all the resources they did this year and having it turn out the way it did, I just have no faith.

# 17 onin9190 @ 10/24/15 10:47 PM

Next year well see an MUT franchise mode. Because we all love MUT sarcasm aside. They will find another way to forget the Franchise mode and implement another aspect to UT. It brings in too much money and until people stop spending money on fake digital cards that the moment they use them they lose them and then have to spend more money to get new cards, EA will not care for the CFM user. I used to love playing franchise mode. Hire and fire my coaching staff it either made my team better or worse I liked that it put strategy into the game. This game is just just a beautiful display with terrible gameplay and focuses on UT.

# 18 tessl @ 10/26/15 12:37 PM

Didn't they fix this in the most recent patch?

# 19 Cardot @ 10/26/15 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BadAssHskr


	i fully believe in football, or sport in general, there are motivation factors that allow players to over perform or get up faster, etc... on the flip side the same factors get players down as well.

Perhaps, but can you put a mathematical formula to it? In my experience it does more harm than good. And I would even suggest that the user already incorporates the confidence aspect.....If I get sacked a couple times, I am going to start to get happy feet in the pocket etc....no need for the programming to dramatically alter my players rating.

# 20 Hassan Darkside @ 10/26/15 02:34 PM

Confidence or something of that nature isn't foreign to sports games. There's always been hot/cold players or biorhythms or something of that nature. I think it's just something EA overthought or continues to overthink with Madden.

I thought it was mostly fine in NCAA football where players were either cold (blue), normal (white), warm (yellow), or hot (red). That was determined based off of what was happening on the field and was a standard element in the base gameplay (unlike this drive goal BS). Granted, it was a pretty simplistic way of handling things, but it was able to identify when a player or group of players have strung together good plays (and games) and mimic the boost in confidence without going too over the top.

I don't expect them to get rid of either of these features next year because they'd have to admit defeat on their "headlining" CFM features. I do expect that they'll give us an option to disable them, though.

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