[KSUowls]

1 - Get rid of scouting in franchise as well as coaches. They are useless in the current iteration, and EA seems married to at least one of these systems (coaching). So don't bother wasting drive space on them.

-Tongue and cheek answers aside, both of these systems need to be rebuilt from the ground up. The 'new' scouting system isn't fun, and it is definitely isn't engaging. The coaching skill tree (cheats as I call them) seems to be someone's baby at EA it is a system that just won't go away despite being generic and linear. It's one of the things that make it so easy for people to criticize the company for claiming the "simulation" football license. There is a huge opportunity in Franchise to make staff development matter from your coordinators to your scouts. Implementing an attribute system as well as making coaching styles really matter would both go a long way to making Franchise more engaging and bringing differentiation across teams and staffs.

2 - Delete everything in the current presentation code and rebuild it from scratch. I wouldn't mind a new broadcast team as well, but at least give them some lines that are both accurate, interesting, and relevant to the virtual world that you are in.

-Emphasize a tv broadcast style atmosphere from the commentary team, visuals on screen, half time show etc...
-Bring more stats, visuals, audio, etc in terms of stats and stories about individual players and teams to the main menu. Think the Tony Bruno Show or what the 2K games have done with a weekly show. Not going to continue rehashing things which were talked about in Chase's article and the associated thread a couple of weeks ago, but basically just bring more immersion to franchise on the field and in the menus.


Honestly...these two things would make Madden a must buy very year for me and would more or less fix my complaints with Franchise being soulless. Both are pretty big lifts, but the gameplay is in a pretty good spot right now (obviously there are still issues). I just find it really hard to care about my franchise because the presentation sucks and the coaching/scouting system is terrible.

-----

3 - Rethink the approach to player ratings. I would love to see a shift in player ratings such that the bell curve moves to the left. Leave the outliers where they are, but just create more separation between Justin Jefferson and Chase Claypool. Instead of gimmicks like Superstar/x-factor abilities (can't remember what they are called), create separation between players by creating bigger variances in their attributes rather than these arcade style powerups.

-This would likely necessitate the creation of some new player attributes. It would also certainly need to have draft logic reworked. It always seems like generated draft classes come in with higher rated players than the real rookies of any given Madden iteration.

4 - Pre-draft starting point for Franchise. I think it would be really cool if we could redo the current year's NFL draft with whatever team we select. As a Falcons fan, maybe I trade up and get Bryce or stay at 7 and take Jalen Carter instead of a running back. Give me that opportunity to start in the offseason before we ever even get to the pre-season.

5 - Simulate real life stats during simulation. This one really baffles me that they can't make simulated game stats be more in line with real NFL football. Low priority, but it would be very much appreciated with the other changes.


-----

The above are all heavy lifts to varying degrees (except maybe #4). These are general improvements that I would like to see.

-Fix defense. Zone always seems to be broken in some manner.
-Penalty sliders that work.
-Let me select Kickoff/Receive at the start of each game as well as the direction, not a default menu option
-More weather! One of my favorite things since the dawn of Madden was to play in the elements. The more extreme conditions just don't seem to exist though.
-More relocation options. The team did a good job with adding places like Tokyo and Melbourne this year, but the team names and uniforms just don't match. The closest thing to a team name that matches a Tokyo based relocation would be the Dragons. Nothing else remotely fits and the uniforms are pretty meh to imo.
-Universal editor
-Tune the gameplay for "simulation mode" to a higher speed threshold. I imagine that sliders would be easier to figure out if the settings didn't assume an ultra fast gameplay by default.