EA Sports released details on the new features and improvements made for Madden 16 Connect Franchise yesterday. Today I'm going to walk you through each of those improvements and give you an idea of what it will mean to you and how you play Madden 16.
Cloud Franchises
This year EA is changing the term from "online" franchise to "cloud". This is to allow for faster league advancements, for users to access their leagues online and to invite new members easier.
ANALYSIS: Supposedly everything will run faster but the weeks advanced pretty fast in Online CFMs to begin with. I'm not sure this is going to be a change that really has much of an impact on the user. We could already access our leagues online, especially when using a site like DaddyLeagues. So, I think this is more of a marketing point and one they think will have a more positive association with users considering how everything else online is going "cloud" based.
Dynamic Drive Goals
New drive goals give you specific criteria to try and accomplish on each drive in addition to your weekly and season goals. Both offense and defense will have drive goals and the more that you complete, the faster your players will improve.
ANALYSIS: This could be a cool new feature. One one hand, each drive gives you a new goal to shoot for and another opportunity to try and improve your players. On the other hand, it will also introduce a risk vs reward element not really seen before. Say your drive goal is to get your #1 receiver a passing touchdown. But what if it's late in a close game and you want to try and pound the ball and play it safe? Do you risk a potential INT for the extra XP? EA has said that there is no penalty for not completing the goals. So, its all up to the user. This adds an extra element that could produce some unique scenarios throughout games and seasons.
Post-Play Goal Feedback
You will now get instant feedback on your goals and player confidence after plays. You will be able to see confidence changes next to your player and a ticker at the bottom of the screen will update you on your goal status.
ANALYSIS: I think we have to wait and see how this is actually implemented. In the two screen shots above it looks like it will be a cool feature and that is has been implemented pretty well. However, there is always the risk of giving us to much information. Especially with confidence. A coach does not always know where his player's head is at. I'm not sure I want to see confidence levels rising and falling constantly throughout the game. Again, we will have to wait and see how this is actually implemented during a game.
Weekly Goals
The goals system has been completely overhauled and weekly goals have become more dynamic. Now, players that are having a great season may have their weekly goals change as the season progresses.
ANALYSIS: This looks like a big upgrade over the previous system where a 2nd string running back had the same goals every week regardless of whether he was coming off the bench or inherited the starting job due to performance or injury.I'd like to see more of this and see how the goals change as the season goes along but I think it is a feature that was much needed.
Goal Loading Screens
Loading screens during franchises have been changed to show players where they stand on various goals throughout the season.
ANALYSIS: This is a small change but a necessary one. I've often wondered why loading screen gives you useless information. They should all show you info about your team and your season. Its a relatively small change but one that I think most users will appreciate and derive some value from.
Things To Do
The "Actions" and "Home" screens from last year have been consolidated and streamlined into one convenient location.
ANALYSIS: I'm not sure I'm crazy about the name but the interface certainly seems better. I wasn't a big fan of the menu system last year. There were a lot of players who had trouble finding how to do relatively simple things within their team This year it looks to be much easier to navigate which should make the overall franchise experience more enjoyable.
Visual Team Depth Chart
Borrowing from Madden Ultimate Team, this year franchise users will see their entire depth chart on one screen making it easier to move players in and out of the lineup.
ANALYSIS: This is certainly an improvement over the way EA has been handling depth charts for the past 10-15 years and one players who have played Madden Ultimate Team will be familiar with. Having the entire depth chart on the screen at one time makes it a lot easier to manage your starters and reserves.
With that being said, I never really liked the MUT depth charts to begin with. For one, I don't really need to see the pictures of the starters. I know it is more visually appealing to some (especially with cards in MUT), but it just reminds me of a card game, not being an NFL head coach. Also, the player names are hard to read and I don't really like the layout of the positions. It is also misleading because you think you can specify a slot wide receiver or separate your defensive tackles positions. But really, they are just WR #3 and DT #1 and DT#2 like they always have been.
This is definitely an improvement over the old, antiquated way to set depth charts. But I think they could have done more with this and made it more functional for the user.
Player Card
Users can now access all of a player's attributes in one place without having to scroll back-and-forth on the screen. They also have the ability to see a player's goals, add them to a trade block, release and edit them all from the same screen.
ANALYSIS: This is one of my favorite additions this year and one that was long overdue. You can now easily see all of your player's ratings on one screen. No longer do you have to scroll through a spreadsheet to get a complete overview of your player. Now its neatly presented on the player's card. The ability to see goals and perform transactions related to that player will make many cyber coaches life's much, much easier.
New Scouting
Scouting in Madden 16 has been completely reworked from the ground up. Scouting points now unlock a player's top three attributes with the third providing their true draft value.
ANALYSIS: Judging by the description, I'm very worried that EA has just made scouting way too simple. It appears to be fairly inexpensive to unlock each of the three main player attributes. The third giving you the "true draft value" really bothers me.
Part of the fun of the draft was finding hidden gems late in the draft. If you spent the time to scout guys projected in the later rounds, you could come up with some great players late in the draft. Now it looks like it will be much easier for everyone to find the "diamonds in the rough."
Hopefully this system is a little more in depth than in sounds and looks. Personally, I thought scouting was too easy the way it was. Now, you will have to spend your scouting points week-to-week and not hoard them like you could before so that is a plus. But I really don't want to see the "true draft value." I like that "fog of war" so to speak. I want to be surprised by a 6th or 7th rounder who can compete for a starting job. Again, maybe the information released isn't giving us the whole story. But, this could be a make or break feature for some users if everyone can easily see who the studs and busts are in each round.
Combine Stats
Players can now access Combine Reports during NFL Combine Week, which includes a Combine Grade and results from six Combine events: 40-yard Dash, Vertical Jump, Broad Jump, 3 Cone, 20-yard Shuttle, and Bench Press. These results can be seen without spending any Scouting Points.
ANALYSIS: Everyone is going to LOVE this feature I think. This has been requested for many, many years in Madden and now we finally have it. You can now see who the top performers were in each of the Combine skills assessments. You can also click on a player's card and see how they did in each event and how they compare to other players at their position. Very, very cool feature and one that should be a lot of fun for users. With all of this extra information, I think we could have done without the "true draft value" of players and made it more of a guessing game. It remains to be seen though on how it will all integrate together.
Draft Feedback
You now get immediate feedback on each of your draft picks including a player card showing all of their attributes.
ANALYSIS: This is another small but very useful addition. It was kind of a pain before to have to back out of the draft and then go back in and scroll through your draft picks to see each of their attributes. Now you get immediate feedback on their draft player card. Very, very solid addition and one that will make the draft that much more enjoyable.
League Functions
You can now see a member's list, user's game status and who is online all from one screen. Commissioners can also toggle Auto Pilot, clear cap penalties, and remove users from the league from the same screen.
League commissioners can also choose to sim a game to a win for a certain team.
ANALYSIS: The sim-to-win feature is much needed, especially for online leagues. Now league commissioners can penalize users who may have broken a rule or keep users from losing to CPU teams. Users could also set up cloud franchises to run by themselves and sim certain games to a win creating dream scenarios. Its another small feature that won't get a lot of attention but will prove to be very useful.
Free Practice
League members can now take their franchise teams out on the practice field to practice plays and use backups who would not otherwise play in a game.
ANALYSIS: This may wind up being the most liked feature within the community when all is said and done. Madden users have been complaining about the inability to practice with your franchise mode teams and now you can. This adds so much to the franchise experience that it cannot be understated. You can now see how new players perform without having to go straight into a game. You can test new plays with players that are actually in your lineup. You can experiment with sub packages, on and on and on. I know veterans of the game will say this feature never should have been removed but its back and its going to make franchises much, much more enjoyable.
Confidence Tuning
Player confidence has been tuned and the amount of changes to a players confidence has been reduced. There is also an additional Game Prep activity for increasing confidence as well as additional Game Prep points per week.
ANALYSIS: I certainly thought the negative impact of player confidence was overdone last year. If it is more balanced in Madden 16 it will be a definite plus. We saw a lot of users get off to slow starts with teams and never recover due to extremely low confidence levels across their teams. This definitely needed an overhaul. Additional Game Prep time to address confidence will also help. However, we just have to see how it all fits together. More game prep time and more goals could lead to a lot of highly rated players which would be a negative to some. We just have to wait and see how it is implemented and hope that they found a good balance with Game Prep and goals.
Owner Mode Finance Tuning
Small-market teams in older stadiums now have more money to spend going into the offseason every year.
ANALYSIS: If done right, it may make my wildly popular How to Make Money in Madden video obsolete. Way too many teams struggled to make money last year. That affected free agency and the trade market. Many teams could never recover. They should have fixed this last year, but late is better than never. Hopefully this allows teams to be more competitive which will enhance everyone's overall franchise experience.
What did you think of the new features released yesterday? Are you more excited for the game or kind of disappointed? Let us know in the comments.
Cloud Franchises
This year EA is changing the term from "online" franchise to "cloud". This is to allow for faster league advancements, for users to access their leagues online and to invite new members easier.
ANALYSIS: Supposedly everything will run faster but the weeks advanced pretty fast in Online CFMs to begin with. I'm not sure this is going to be a change that really has much of an impact on the user. We could already access our leagues online, especially when using a site like DaddyLeagues. So, I think this is more of a marketing point and one they think will have a more positive association with users considering how everything else online is going "cloud" based.
Dynamic Drive Goals
New drive goals give you specific criteria to try and accomplish on each drive in addition to your weekly and season goals. Both offense and defense will have drive goals and the more that you complete, the faster your players will improve.
ANALYSIS: This could be a cool new feature. One one hand, each drive gives you a new goal to shoot for and another opportunity to try and improve your players. On the other hand, it will also introduce a risk vs reward element not really seen before. Say your drive goal is to get your #1 receiver a passing touchdown. But what if it's late in a close game and you want to try and pound the ball and play it safe? Do you risk a potential INT for the extra XP? EA has said that there is no penalty for not completing the goals. So, its all up to the user. This adds an extra element that could produce some unique scenarios throughout games and seasons.
Post-Play Goal Feedback
You will now get instant feedback on your goals and player confidence after plays. You will be able to see confidence changes next to your player and a ticker at the bottom of the screen will update you on your goal status.
ANALYSIS: I think we have to wait and see how this is actually implemented. In the two screen shots above it looks like it will be a cool feature and that is has been implemented pretty well. However, there is always the risk of giving us to much information. Especially with confidence. A coach does not always know where his player's head is at. I'm not sure I want to see confidence levels rising and falling constantly throughout the game. Again, we will have to wait and see how this is actually implemented during a game.
Weekly Goals
The goals system has been completely overhauled and weekly goals have become more dynamic. Now, players that are having a great season may have their weekly goals change as the season progresses.
ANALYSIS: This looks like a big upgrade over the previous system where a 2nd string running back had the same goals every week regardless of whether he was coming off the bench or inherited the starting job due to performance or injury.I'd like to see more of this and see how the goals change as the season goes along but I think it is a feature that was much needed.
Goal Loading Screens
Loading screens during franchises have been changed to show players where they stand on various goals throughout the season.
ANALYSIS: This is a small change but a necessary one. I've often wondered why loading screen gives you useless information. They should all show you info about your team and your season. Its a relatively small change but one that I think most users will appreciate and derive some value from.
Things To Do
The "Actions" and "Home" screens from last year have been consolidated and streamlined into one convenient location.
ANALYSIS: I'm not sure I'm crazy about the name but the interface certainly seems better. I wasn't a big fan of the menu system last year. There were a lot of players who had trouble finding how to do relatively simple things within their team This year it looks to be much easier to navigate which should make the overall franchise experience more enjoyable.
Visual Team Depth Chart
Borrowing from Madden Ultimate Team, this year franchise users will see their entire depth chart on one screen making it easier to move players in and out of the lineup.
ANALYSIS: This is certainly an improvement over the way EA has been handling depth charts for the past 10-15 years and one players who have played Madden Ultimate Team will be familiar with. Having the entire depth chart on the screen at one time makes it a lot easier to manage your starters and reserves.
With that being said, I never really liked the MUT depth charts to begin with. For one, I don't really need to see the pictures of the starters. I know it is more visually appealing to some (especially with cards in MUT), but it just reminds me of a card game, not being an NFL head coach. Also, the player names are hard to read and I don't really like the layout of the positions. It is also misleading because you think you can specify a slot wide receiver or separate your defensive tackles positions. But really, they are just WR #3 and DT #1 and DT#2 like they always have been.
This is definitely an improvement over the old, antiquated way to set depth charts. But I think they could have done more with this and made it more functional for the user.
Player Card
Users can now access all of a player's attributes in one place without having to scroll back-and-forth on the screen. They also have the ability to see a player's goals, add them to a trade block, release and edit them all from the same screen.
ANALYSIS: This is one of my favorite additions this year and one that was long overdue. You can now easily see all of your player's ratings on one screen. No longer do you have to scroll through a spreadsheet to get a complete overview of your player. Now its neatly presented on the player's card. The ability to see goals and perform transactions related to that player will make many cyber coaches life's much, much easier.
New Scouting
Scouting in Madden 16 has been completely reworked from the ground up. Scouting points now unlock a player's top three attributes with the third providing their true draft value.
ANALYSIS: Judging by the description, I'm very worried that EA has just made scouting way too simple. It appears to be fairly inexpensive to unlock each of the three main player attributes. The third giving you the "true draft value" really bothers me.
Part of the fun of the draft was finding hidden gems late in the draft. If you spent the time to scout guys projected in the later rounds, you could come up with some great players late in the draft. Now it looks like it will be much easier for everyone to find the "diamonds in the rough."
Hopefully this system is a little more in depth than in sounds and looks. Personally, I thought scouting was too easy the way it was. Now, you will have to spend your scouting points week-to-week and not hoard them like you could before so that is a plus. But I really don't want to see the "true draft value." I like that "fog of war" so to speak. I want to be surprised by a 6th or 7th rounder who can compete for a starting job. Again, maybe the information released isn't giving us the whole story. But, this could be a make or break feature for some users if everyone can easily see who the studs and busts are in each round.
Combine Stats
Players can now access Combine Reports during NFL Combine Week, which includes a Combine Grade and results from six Combine events: 40-yard Dash, Vertical Jump, Broad Jump, 3 Cone, 20-yard Shuttle, and Bench Press. These results can be seen without spending any Scouting Points.
ANALYSIS: Everyone is going to LOVE this feature I think. This has been requested for many, many years in Madden and now we finally have it. You can now see who the top performers were in each of the Combine skills assessments. You can also click on a player's card and see how they did in each event and how they compare to other players at their position. Very, very cool feature and one that should be a lot of fun for users. With all of this extra information, I think we could have done without the "true draft value" of players and made it more of a guessing game. It remains to be seen though on how it will all integrate together.
Draft Feedback
You now get immediate feedback on each of your draft picks including a player card showing all of their attributes.
ANALYSIS: This is another small but very useful addition. It was kind of a pain before to have to back out of the draft and then go back in and scroll through your draft picks to see each of their attributes. Now you get immediate feedback on their draft player card. Very, very solid addition and one that will make the draft that much more enjoyable.
League Functions
You can now see a member's list, user's game status and who is online all from one screen. Commissioners can also toggle Auto Pilot, clear cap penalties, and remove users from the league from the same screen.
League commissioners can also choose to sim a game to a win for a certain team.
ANALYSIS: The sim-to-win feature is much needed, especially for online leagues. Now league commissioners can penalize users who may have broken a rule or keep users from losing to CPU teams. Users could also set up cloud franchises to run by themselves and sim certain games to a win creating dream scenarios. Its another small feature that won't get a lot of attention but will prove to be very useful.
Free Practice
League members can now take their franchise teams out on the practice field to practice plays and use backups who would not otherwise play in a game.
ANALYSIS: This may wind up being the most liked feature within the community when all is said and done. Madden users have been complaining about the inability to practice with your franchise mode teams and now you can. This adds so much to the franchise experience that it cannot be understated. You can now see how new players perform without having to go straight into a game. You can test new plays with players that are actually in your lineup. You can experiment with sub packages, on and on and on. I know veterans of the game will say this feature never should have been removed but its back and its going to make franchises much, much more enjoyable.
Confidence Tuning
Player confidence has been tuned and the amount of changes to a players confidence has been reduced. There is also an additional Game Prep activity for increasing confidence as well as additional Game Prep points per week.
ANALYSIS: I certainly thought the negative impact of player confidence was overdone last year. If it is more balanced in Madden 16 it will be a definite plus. We saw a lot of users get off to slow starts with teams and never recover due to extremely low confidence levels across their teams. This definitely needed an overhaul. Additional Game Prep time to address confidence will also help. However, we just have to see how it all fits together. More game prep time and more goals could lead to a lot of highly rated players which would be a negative to some. We just have to wait and see how it is implemented and hope that they found a good balance with Game Prep and goals.
Owner Mode Finance Tuning
Small-market teams in older stadiums now have more money to spend going into the offseason every year.
ANALYSIS: If done right, it may make my wildly popular How to Make Money in Madden video obsolete. Way too many teams struggled to make money last year. That affected free agency and the trade market. Many teams could never recover. They should have fixed this last year, but late is better than never. Hopefully this allows teams to be more competitive which will enhance everyone's overall franchise experience.
What did you think of the new features released yesterday? Are you more excited for the game or kind of disappointed? Let us know in the comments.
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