Madden 16 wish list

Around this time last year, I published my Madden NFL 15 wish list. I received a good amount of feedback on the article and decided to reprise it for the release of Madden NFL 16. In last year’s article, I discussed 5 things that I wanted to see change in the, then, upcoming Madden title. I’ll be doing the same thing for my Madden 16 wish list, but in a much more detailed fashion.

My Madden 16 wish list calls for 30 changes to be made. Let’s jump right into things.

Improved juking

The juking animations have undoubtedly gotten better in recent years, but they still have a long way to go in my opinion. The players look a little stiff in certain situations and could use an upgrade to look more realistic when making cuts.

Trick plays

It’d be nice to have a trick play formation come standard in every playbook. Flea flickers, wide receiver passes, halfback passes, double reverses and things of that nature would be included.

Sideline players

The players that fill the sidelines in the current Madden games are extremely bland. They have little-to-no detail and lack names on the back of their jerseys. This is an area that needs major improvements.

Sideline workers

Much like the sideline players, the officials and workers on the sidelines need to be upgraded. Cameramen and photographers can be seen wearing khaki shorts….all season long. Different elements and times of the year should determine what they’re wearing to make it more realistic. It’d also be nice if the sideline crew looked more realistic.

Tournament mode

Enable users to create offline/online brackets with their friends. Make it that they can also fill empty seeds with AI. This way users can still do an 8-team tournament if they only have 7 people present at the time.

Fix trading

The trading system in Madden 15 is completely broken. Trading 3 garbage corners, receivers, or defensive tackles can get you practically anybody in the game. When I say garbage, I really mean garbage. You can go to into free agency and sign 3 66 overall players and trade them for a superstar player. And if that doesn’t work, throw in 2 of the corners and a first or second round draft pick and the trade will likely work. This needs to be addressed.

Trade finder

Inserting a trade finder into the connected franchise would be great. This way users can select players that they’re interested in and see what it would it cost to acquire them in a trade.

Player search

A search bar to locate players would be a fantastic tool for franchise mode. It would save time when trying to locate a particular player. This way, instead of scrolling through roster after roster, users can find players quickly.

Better commentary

The commentary often doesn’t matchup with what’s actually going on in the game. Believable and relevant commentary would be a plus. It’d also be nice to see more than just 2 announcers. It’d be more realistic and would help to keep things fresh.

Custom hot routes

Allow users to customize which hot routes they want to use in their offensive game plan.

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Team and uniform creation

The current state of uniform and team creation is a bit boring. The predetermined logos aren’t anything special. It’d be cool if users were given the ability to create logos from scratch, kind of like how users create vinyls for their cars in the Forza franchise.

Coordinators

In older installments of Madden, users were able to hire/fire their offensive and defensive coordinators. This made franchises feel deeper. This led to making certain hires to improve certain aspects of your team.

Suspensions

I highly doubt that EA would implement something like this, but it’d add realism and a new degree of management to the game. It’d also impact contract negotiations and free agency. Bringing in a risky player would be something to think about when adding players to your roster.

Conservative tackles

Conservative tackles were added to Madden 15; by pressing “A” players are able to make the safe tackle rather than missing with a hit stick. It’s a good idea, but it wasn’t implemented correctly. Spamming A often causes defensive players to receive massive speed boosts, which often leads to nearly impossible tackles being made. 350-pound nose tackles are chasing guys like Jamaal Charles and LeSean McCoy down in situations that they would never catch them. The idea is good, but it must be tweaked to be more realistic.

Playoff statistics

Allow users to go back and check how their players performed in the playoffs.

Pick captains

As trivial as it sounds, selecting the captains of your football team was something that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Position switches

Madden currently allows you to switch positions, but only at a certain point during the offseason. Being able to alter positions during the season would be a plus.

Kicker records

The NFL records menu has stats for offensive and defensive players, but not for kickers. Being able to look at all-time kicking records would be a nice feature.

Adding in some new blocking animations is sorely needed. It’s not very often that you see a blocker deliver a huge block in Madden and that should change.

Tackling

Some tackling animations in the next gen versions of Madden are awesome, but upgrades are still needed. Players like Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski aren’t easy to takedown and gameplay should mimic that. Having defensive players struggle (visually) to takedown opposing players would be a good addition.

Veteran influence

Having a player like Peyton Manning or Tom Brady ahead of your backup QB should pay dividends. Young players should benefit from having a skilled veteran on the roster in front of them.

Pay cuts

Veteran free agents should consider playing for contenders for less. Having the chance to win a Super Bowl changes contract negotiations, especially when it comes to veteran players.

Change pass and run percentages

When you first create your coach in connected careers, you are asked to choose your run and pass percentages. After starting your franchise, you are never able to edit that again. That’s a big deal, especially if you get really deep into a franchise. With your personnel constantly changing, having the ability to change your offensive game plan is essential.

Disposable fantasy draft

Give users the ability to quickly create disposable fantasy drafts. This way users can test different draft methods without going through the hassle of creating new franchises over and over.

Defensive schemes

Giving users the ability to create a better defensive game plan is necessary. Users should be able to stick specific corners or safeties on opposing players. If you want to put Darrelle Revis on Jimmy Graham for the entirety of the game, you should be able to do that.

Instant 100 attributes

Give users the ability to instantly raise created player attributes to 100. This would save loads of time when you’re creating multiple players.

Player customization

A more detailed player creation process is an upgrade that’s long overdue. Having the freedom to create a player from scratch would be fun. It’d also be neat if Xbox users were given the ability to face scan via Kinect (hopefully it’d work out better than 2k15‘s face scanning).

Pro Bowl emblem

Bring back the Pro Bowl emblem next to player pictures in the roster menu. It’s a simple, yet helpful thing that should never have been taken out in the first place.

Improved depth charts

The depth charts in Madden are too basic. Users should have the ability to set their depth chart for every formation if they choose to do so. This would allow people to better utilize the players on their roster.

Spectator mode

A lot of competitive games have spectator modes built-in to them. This type of feature would work great in Madden. It would allow users to watch their friends compete during franchise modes. The spectator mode should be an additional tab in connected careers. This way players can seamlessly watch their friends from the franchise home screen.

Those 30 things make up my Madden 16 wish list. If there’s anything that you want to see added to Madden 16, just drop a comment below!

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