To those in Top, you’ll get why a lot of these issues need fixing, but to those not who are visiting from say Reddit…Top Madden is an online CFM and this Madden 21 wish list is aimed at things that would make Madden a way better experience for a sim league. So lets get right to it.
Abilites
While SS/XF abilities was a fantastic addition to this game, it had its issues. Lets go through some ideas I’ve had to make them better across the board.
- Don’t tie them to dev trait, tie them to ratings – guys like James White should be able to have more routes available to them than other running backs. Dev a receiving back up to the 80s in route running and he gets a trait and then this receiving traits into the 90s then he gets another. This separates him as elite in his class instead of being dev traits. This now erases the need for development stories which in turns, stops stat padding in league.
- Similar to badges in 2k, introduce levels. – With traits not being tied to dev trait, more players will now have these abilities, so to not dilute the pool and make everyone OP. The 70/80 rating traits should be extremely limited. Set them apart from their peers but don’t change the game. Then maybe when a player has a combination of SS/XF dev trait and 90+ ratings they can get gold or elite versions of the traits. For example, Allen/Wentz/Murray should all have escape artist. Where they react quicker but the speed boost from M20 Escape Artist is too OP, so maybe its a version where they move accelerate quicker but their true acceleration caps at 90 and in Escape Artist elite they can accelerate and run as fast as they did in M21. You get what I’m saying. Because as of now, its like speed is capped at 75 for non escape artist QBs which is simply too slow.
- Allow CMs to assign/remove/disable/lock traits – Traits like Mossed, Omaha, QB Playmaker, and others may be deemed unsim to a league. We should be able to lock those traits from the league pool. Also allow a CM to assign a trait to a player. More control is always better for a league.
- Get Rid Of Super Heroes – Specifically Mossed, Human Joystick, these traits are super human. Every player is held down to the limits of physics and having someone being able to become inhuman and just not get affected by direction change is simply game breaking. I think more traits in the realm of blitz detector and Omaha are great because it allows the “mental” super stars of the NFL to help the user out but none of this mon-star is no longer affected by basic physics stuff.
- Coach Abilities – Brought up in a league chat convo, I think the introduction of offensive and defensive coordinators could introduce abilities for the coaches. This would apply more to scheme and playcalling based success, for example a coach with a Cover 3 ability would now allow his team to have better play rec/awareness/etc on cover 3 plays and maybe theres more adjustments available in those coverages versus others.
Gameplay
This will be long winded but here goes nothing
- Man switching – man coverage has always been pretty bad. Introducing the concept of switching man or inside/outside responsibilities for corners opens up many opportunities. Man won’t be as predictable to beat, you don’t have to run press man to stop literally any route, and leaving low awareness corners in man will result in bad switches freeing up routes. Its a key fundamental part of football that isn’t in the game.
- CB Following – Let me put player X on Player Y. Not by speed, not by overall, not by hand size. Let me put Ramsey on Diggs and everyone else figures it out.
- Fifa Skill Move System – I’ve enjoyed the Fifa skill move system where you have a 1-5 star rating system. The higher the star rating for a player, the cooler/fancier the moves will look and the more moves are available to the player. Using the RS similar to the old skate games to create different kinds of moves would start to separate the boys from men in the stick skill game instead of the reliance on the same meta moves.
- Hard Counts – This year hard counts really just mean give up 5 yards and look like an idiot. I’ve yet to see it ever work, but more importantly the point of a hard count is not solely to get someone offsides, its to expose the true defense. So you have a low overall/awareness nickel corner blitzing? well on the hard count have him take a step to the quarterback essentially “giving away” he is blitzing.
- Agility/Recovery penalties – while ball projection did wonders for the passing game this cycle, we still don’t see a penalty for usering players towards the LOS and then recovering deep. It comes down to AI not actually running full speed when they are going through routes, which is why its easy to user a route over the top with a slower defender, or even recover deep with a safety after having stepped up 5 yards at the snap. There needs to be an acceleration penalty for players that are trying to recover deep which would again, open up the passing game.
- Smarter Zone Defense – the main issue with asking for passing game improvements is that it makes defense so damn hard. Especially when zones play predictable. Cover 3? Deep out. Cover 2? Post. Man Coverage? Any route. I need zones to play smarter, to not just stop and guard grass but to be active and not leave routes wide open.
- More Efficient Screens – A huge struggle in M20 is how OP pass rush feels. You’ll get sacked damn near 10 times a game against XF DL. In football, the screen game is a huge way to keep the DL honest and hurt a team that is too ambitious to get to the QB. That being said, the screens need to A. be less obvious B. the Hb needs to not run into his OL all the time. C. FL and WR screens need to actually create a lane and have a pass animation that leads the receiver upfield instead of standing still and being instantly hit. The bubble screens work well this madden, lets fix the others.
- Rollout/Sprint Out plays – 8/10 of every rollout play is an insta-sack. Fixing the OL blocking to allow these plays to develop more fluidly would open up the passing game. Allow a defensive option to play for the roll out which would 1) give the instant sack/pressure you want but 2) the backside end won’t crash on the run game. Its a game of risk/reward here.
- Less Picks – We have all felt it, the bad throw animation where the ball goes literally opposite of where intended. But lets make these throws incomplete. Thrown too short, or overthrown out of bounds.
- Overthrown Deep Passes – When was the last time you threw a deep ball and it was too far? maybe once all cycle? There should be a little more timing involved on the deep passes and a penalty to throws who anticipate a little too early.
- Route Guessing – Another risk/reward want. Allow a mechanic to allow you to guess a route. So you’re in cover 3 and you know the deep out is coming? Hot route your corner to play the out breaking route. the Risk? he gets toasted inside cuts or by any double move. Reward? He’s jumping the out route for 6. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I could yell at my safety “OMG JUST PLAY THE POST”
- Predetermined Throws – I think one of the big coverage issues is how fast 3-4 OLB can recover to the flats. Some times a hot read, quick throw is the difference between a sack and a big play. If I know 100% I want a quick flat route throw add in a presnap mechanic that will instantly throw to my guy at the snap. Too often in madden you try to throw it quick but it doesn’t register because the snap didn’t get to the QB yet and then you eat a sack. The PRO here is it opens up quick passing game the CON for the offense is, you’re committed to the throw so choose wisely. This may also help with screens as mentioned before.
- I would like to see lobby joining and spectating. It would be cool from a presentation perspective, to be able to join a league matchup and watch from the normal TV broadcast camera with full control on the angles and everything.
- Home field advantage is great and all, and some would like to see play art shaking during the presnap when the stadium is loud as hell. But heres the thing, just because you’re the home team doesn’t mean your defense can hear over the noise. I think if the stadium is loud enough the game should make it so hot routing, hard snapping, audibling is now affected. Where low awareness players can’t hear and might run the wrong play or jump offside because they couldn’t hear the QB. This would go the same for the defense who. Hot routing normally helps the offense more than the defense and this provides a way for being the home team to show an advantage on crucial downs, knowing your opponent can’t super hot route his play.
Equipment
- The Kyler Murray/Cam Newton headband
- Ankle tape that actually looks like it didn’t come from minecraft
- Custom cleats for the Support your Own Cause week in the NFL.
- Wristbands (think LIVESTRONG)
- Non-tight Long Sleeve Shirts
- Multiple sleeves
- Socks options.
Franchise
- Actually hide the dev’s – they made it seem like your dev trait would be hidden until 500 snaps but you could just edit the player and see the dev trait.
- Draft Classes – a lot to cover here so bear with me:
- The following positions are almost completely useless in madden draft classes. WR, 4-3 LB, Safety, TE. For linebackers and tight ends, they simply don’t match the prospects we see in the NFL today. We have had multiple 90 speed linebackers irl, Deion Jones, Griffin, White, Cashman, Sweat and yet these draft classes churn out 83 speed linebackers as early first round talents and the occasional 87 speed TE every 4 years. Not to mention how 95% of the real players have a higher accel rating than speed rating, and yet the draft gives you lower accel. How is a corner 96 speed but 88 accel? Did he just leapfrog to start his 40?
- First round grade receiver? 66 catching. That’s lower than every single receiver in the game at release, and he is a first round grade? I need these positions reworked because if a drafted receiver doesn’t have 95+ speed they really aren’t worth taking or they will have a weird route running or catch rating that doesn’t fit the skill set of the receivers we see in the real player ratings.
- From a CM standpoint, for custom classes, allow a % chance of getting a rating instead of a clear chosen dev trait/rating. This variance will allow leagues to be more comfortable using a custom draft class.
- Back to franchise stuff – allow CMs more control in cap management of teams as well as the league itself. Allow the resetting of games. Too many times a game is lost due to a rule violation for a sim league and we can’t give that W back. So allow us to reset the game and force them to replay.
- Trading – Allow the eating of contracts. This helps create fair trades by allowing a team to take on the contract of a high cost player so that teams can get cap relief instead of a bunch of dead money.
- Waiver Wire – When a player is cut, they don’t go to free agency, instead they hit waivers at the next advance. A menu pops up for each user to go to the waiver wire and submit a claim on a player. This fixes drop trading, high value Free agents from going immediately to a top users team, and just creates a more sim experience.
- Veteran Players – I would like to see an increase in some stats to help “counter” regression. An old star isn’t really going to lose play rec, awareness. ya know the non-physical stuff. Maybe those go up while the player loses the physical stats. Also, mentorship. I would like to see an XP bonus for players in a position group is there is a 87+ overall and 30+ overall player in that group. Like Larry Fitz for example, let the weekly training for all WRs on that roster get a small boost.
- While many would like to see player hold outs, suspensions, I think there just needs to be an option to negate that so it doesn’t make online CFMs too difficult.
- Stamina/Health Continuation – I want to see health and stamina affect players across multiple games. If you are playing a Sunday Night game and have a turnaround into TNF, your players may need to play less downs forcing you to use your backups. If you give your RB 25+ carries per game he should be a little more banged up later in the season resulting in a higher injury rate, or full game stamina. This can be countered by load management, not taking as many big hits in a game if possible, and resting before playoffs.
- Draft Day Presentation – We don’t need to see a walk up animation if that takes too much resources but I feel an attribute card shown to the full league couldn’t hurt at all. Also the ability to sort through the picks and see who is coming up in the pick order.
