Madden 20: Franchise and the Face Of

Time Played: 111 Hours for 4 Franchise Seasons, 1 Face of the Franchise Season, and a few MUT challenges.

Note: To avoid confusion I will be using the word player to refer to a person who plays Madden, and character to refer to the football players in Madden.

Madden 21 releases next Friday, so it seemed a good time to release a two part review of Madden 20.

In college I bought Madden 06 (the one with Donovan McNabb on the cover), and played at least ten seasons of Franchise mode. I also own Madden 08 on the PC, but frequent crashes made it impossible to enjoy. Starting with the 49ers and Alex Smith I spent a decade developing a team. A problem manifested after four seasons. To understand the issue, I have to explain the rating system Characters are rated on a 1-99 point scale. Teams are ranked similarly. An average team is rated 83, a peak team in the low 90s, and poor teams in the mid to high 70s. In Madden 06 the computer couldn't manage teams. The low 90 and high 80 rated teams deteriorated, while poor teams improved slightly. After a few seasons all computer controlled teams stabilized in the high 70s to low 80s. Eventually the league was full of average to below average teams, but I maintained a high 80 to low 90 team. I can only speculate why the computer couldn't create successful franchises. One, it couldn't train characters. Madden 06 included a Spring Training section with a collection of mini-games. Performing tasks led to significant character improvement. Perhaps the computer performed poorly at these mini-games. Two, the computer was bad at trading. It would swap highly rated older characters for excellent draft picks. It focused on incredibly short term gains at the cost of future development. I was constantly training new All-Stars from multiple first round draft picks, while the AI teams had only the few good characters I traded them, and only for a year or two until they retired. Third, the problem is likely connected to the computer trading among itself. Maybe it preferred trades to improve weak positions, instead of acquiring All-Star talent, or perhaps it doesn't trade at all except in emergencies.
Madden 20 suffers from the same problems. After only four seasons my team surpassed all others with an 89 ranking. There isn't another team ranked better than 84. The computer still accepts the same trades as 06. This allows the player to accumulate good draft picks in exchange for characters with only season or two of relevancy.

A significant change between the two games is character improvement. Madden 06 included Spring Training. Spring training featured mini-game drills, like controlling a Quarterback to throw passes while dodging tennis balls. Or throwing passes through golden rings to wide receivers. The player earned points to improve characters depending on how they performed. The drills were easier with skilled characters, but to truly improve a team one had to complete difficult tasks with unskilled characters.

Madden 20 abandons individualized mini-games for team practice, performed every week. Depending on the match up of the player's team and their next opponent Madden chooses different plays to practice. Using the complete offensive and defense lines the player completes passes to earn a bronze, silver, or gold medal. After playing the offensive side of the ball, the player switches to defense. Defense requires stopping the offense from scoring a touchdown from the 30 yard line. Earning a defensive medal is mostly luck. Though the practice is supposedly to focus on one type of play, the computer controlled QB doesn't target the specified routes. Since the player can't control all the characters simultaneously, it's up to the computer controlled defensive characters to stop the pass.
Characters in Madden 06 improved in individual skills from Spring Training, and during the season without player input. Madden 20 replaces this system with character levels. Each character earns experience during practices and games. They earn small amounts for small actions, like being on the field, and more for touchdowns and interceptions. When a character earns enough experience the player chooses a character style to improve. For example, Quarterbacks are classified as Strong Arm, Improviser, Field General, or Scrambler. The player doesn't choose which individual skills to improve (like speed, throw power, toughness, or awareness), but the character style, which then improves skills associated with the style. A Strong Arm QB will improve in throw power and deep accuracy, while an Improviser learns short accuracy and throw on run. A character's growth is also dependent on their development trait. Characters are rated as Normal, Star, Superstar, and Superstar X-Factor. The better development trait, the more bonus experience the character gains, the faster they improve in levels. The Madden 20 system leads to a more balanced team, though the the computer still fails at leveraging this to create superstars.

While Madden always includes a Franchise mode, Madden 20 includes other modes too. Madden Ultimate Team, acronymized as MUT, allows the player to earn character cards, build a team, and compete online against other players with current and historical characters. Like Hearthstone, MUT is a pay to win mode, where real world money buys the player better characters.
The other special mode is Face of the Franchise, which replaces the various Madden modes like 2006's Superstar mode (and later Longshot modes). Previous iterations allowed the player to choose a rookie character of any position on their way to superstardom. It was like the Franchise mode, except the player only controlled their character (except in games where they still controlled the whole team). It was disappointing limited and Face of the Franchise isn't any better. In FotF the player crafts a college bound QB. There's a bland story with long, incredibly dull, and unskippable cutscenes. After the player is accepted to their preferred college, they are informed that an even better prospect QB decided to play at the same college. The player's character is demoted to backup until the starting QB is injured the day before the Semifinal game of the College Football Playoffs. The player's character takes over and must prove himself in the Semifinal and Championship games.

Mixed into these two games are a number of interminable cutscenes, which ask tiresome and obvious questions about the character. The answers partly determine the skills of the character, especially the Quarterback style. Following the playoffs the character participates in the NFL combine. A collection of passing mini-games, along with the character's playoff success determines their worth. In the NFL draft which follows the combine their worth is illustrated by their draft location. After these introductory elements the Face of the Franchise becomes Franchise mode, but the player is limited to controlling only their character. Every moment of FotF is interspersed with agonizing, unskippable scenes. Once the character is on a team, the mode transitions to a truncated Franchise. There are no more scenes, though that might be a blessing.

Next week, additional thoughts on Madden 20.

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