Madden 24 - Franchise Mode Deep Dive

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Training Camp

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One of the most requested franchise features is back and coming to Madden NFL 24 with the return of Training Camp to Franchise mode. The integration of mini-games will feel familiar and fresh to franchise veterans and newcomers alike.
At the beginning of each season, Training Camp will give you the opportunity to improve your roster by running some of your players through a series of mini-games. In the Madden NFL 24 beta, we included every mini-game in Training Camp knowing we would optimize the list based on player feedback and sentiment we received. The reasoning behind this was to ensure that Training Camp remained a fun and worthwhile experience but also was something that didn’t take an extensive amount of time before being able to start your season. At launch, Training Camp will consist of the following mini-games:

• Target Passing (Quarterbacks)
• Pass Skeleton - Outmanned (Quarterbacks)
• Rushing Attack (Halfbacks and Fullbacks)
• WR Battle (Wide Receivers and Tight Ends)
• WR Battle - Red Zone Attack (Wide Receivers and Tight Ends)
• Trench Battle - The Long Hall (Defensive Line and Linebackers)
• Chase and Tackle (Linebackers)
• DB Battle (Defensive Backs)
• DB Battle - Red Zone Defense (Defensive Backs)
• Field Goal Accuracy (Kickers)
• Coffin Corner (Punters)

Inside Training Camp, the process is simple - first choose your mini-game. Mini-games are available for every position on your roster (with the exception of the offensive line) and the mini-game selected will determine which players on your roster are eligible to play. From there, you can choose any eligible player, but choose wisely as each mini-game can only be completed once AND a player is only allowed to complete one mini-game in Training Camp.


Once inside the mini-game, your success dictates your gains as you vie for a bronze, silver or gold medal with varying awards based on which medal you achieve. The rewards can come in all different forms including Skill Points which will allow you to upgrade your player. You’re not obligated to participate in Training Camp, if you only play a few or none of the mini-games the unplayed will be simulated with a random, weighted chance of either gold, silver or bronze in the same fashion that is done for the CPU.
Weekly Strategy

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In addition to Training Camp, mini-games have also been implemented into the Weekly Strategy loop. Each week after selecting your offensive and defensive gameplans, each of your focus players (except OL) will have the opportunity to play through one mini-game. All 26 mini-games will be available but each focus player will be limited to playing the mini-games they are eligible for. Also, because this is a weekly task the rewards will be much lower than in Training Camp and it is essentially used as a modifier for that player's bonus focus XP.

Dev Note: Mini-Games in Franchise will play a bit different than the mini-games in the front end. This is because in Franchise, players will use their true ratings (with a few exceptions). We’ve adjusted the medal thresholds to account for this.


Trades


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Following the barrage of blockbuster trades over the last couple seasons, we knew that our trade system required a much needed overhaul. Quite simply, our previous system just flat out couldn’t replicate the trades NFL teams were making and in Madden NFL 24, we’ve made a number of improvements to allow for more fun, more flexibility and more realism with trades.
Additional Trade Slots:

The amount of trade slots in Madden NFL 24 has doubled from three to six. In expanding these slots, we wanted to maintain a balance between realism and the fun of stepping into a GM’s shoes and the unfortunate reality is that the vast majority of NFL trades include one and sometimes two players but very rarely more. However, the fortunate reality is that Madden is a video game and sometimes being ultra realistic isn’t necessarily as fun so the amount of players you can add to a trade package will remain at three while the maximum number of picks you will be able to offer will be all six slots.
Extra Draft Picks:

Being able to include up to six draft picks in a trade meant that we also needed to provide you with some additional capital to be able to pull off these blockbuster trades. We’ve added an additional year of draft picks so you’ll now be able to trade or trade for draft picks from the current year, the following year and two years out.
Trade Tuning:

There are an endless number of factors that go into how trades are offered and/or accepted. With the additional trade slots, it was vital that we made a complete pass over our trade tuning heading into Madden NFL 24. Throughout the cycle we uncovered a number of issues that were causing problems and inconsistencies with how players were being valued and have made many improvements that should result in players of all types being valued more consistently.

In addition, with the extra year of draft picks, an additional pass on the value of draft picks needed to be done. While in the draft, we tried to replicate the infamous draft pick charts that you see and hear about coaches and GM’s using so often.
Get Offers:

In Madden NFL 23, we added the ability to get generated offers for your players and opposing players and we’ve made several improvements to its functionality in Madden NFL 24. All of the trade tuning mentioned above also applies to the Get Offers functionality and we also identified and fixed an issue from last year where occasionally there would be offers populated that would not be accepted when attempting via manual trades.

When you get offers for a player, whether he’s on your team or another team, there will be a counter offer button when highlighting a potential package. Using this button will return you to manual trades with the trade slots already filled with the assets from the package you selected and allowing you to readjust the offer.
Commissioner Tools and Settings

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Our players in Franchise mode love to play in lots of different ways. Some like to play solo and other players join a multi-user franchise. Many, like us on the dev team, do both! Each user and league can be wildly different when it comes to how they view and want to play a franchise. For this reason, we understand that it’s vital to continue to add tools to the franchise mode sandbox that allow users to customize and adjust their experience to their wants and needs as much as possible. In Madden NFL 24, we’ve added a number of new commissioner settings so whether you’re in a full 32-User league, a league with a few friends or you’re just riding solo, you’ll have more power to customize your league than ever before.
Depth Chart Reordering:

There is now an ON and OFF option for the reordering of the depth chart. With this setting ON, the depth chart will be reordered to accommodate new acquisitions and slot them in accordingly. With this setting OFF, it will be up to you to reorder your depth chart at all times and place any new acquisitions into the depth chart.

Draft Class Strength:

We’ve done a lot over the last couple cycles to make our generated draft classes more unique and more fun but outside of hand editing the class, there hasn’t been an easy way to customize and adjust classes…until now. Under the League Settings tab in franchise you’ll find Edit Draft Class Strength. From there, you’ll be able to edit the strength of each position in the draft with options that include Very Weak, Weak, Normal, Strong and Very Strong. Each setting will adjust the likelihood of certain types of prospects generating so on Very Strong there will be more top-tier prospects and the chance of seeing a generational is ten times higher than on Normal. On Very Weak, the opposite is true where generationals won’t even have a chance to appear and other top-tiers will have an extremely low chance.

Another quick example of the difference these settings can make in the quality of draft classes is in testing these settings, we generated 30 classes on each setting and with every position set to very strong, draft classes saw an average of nearly ten 80+ OVR prospects per draft. With every position set to Very Weak there were a total of five 80+ OVR prospects over all 30 classes and an average OVR that was over five points lower than the Very Strong classes.

Dev Note: For these settings to take effect, they will need to be set prior to the current season's draft class being generated which takes place in Regular Season Week 1. If changed after a class is generated, they will take effect in the following season.

Offensive and Defensive Playcall Settings:

Previously, cooldowns and play call limits were a universal setting that applied to both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. This year, commissioners will have the ability to apply these limits to offense and defense independently.

Fantasy Draft Order:

Previously, the Fantasy Draft could only be played in a standard order, going from picks 1-32 each round. This year, commissioners can choose this or a Snake draft, which reverses the order each round.

Free Agent Motivations Impact:

The impact of motivations on player signing can now be adjusted or turned off. Raising the impact makes it easier to sign interested players, but more difficult to sign players with lower interest. Lowering the impact makes it easier to sign players with low interest, but reduces the effects of a player having high interest (making them more difficult to sign than they would’ve been).

Trade Difficulty:

Trade Difficulty can now be set, with Easy/Very Easy reducing the value needed for a trade to complete and Hard/Very Hard raising it.

Home Field Advantage Toggle:

There is now an ON and OFF option for Home Field Advantage while playing games, allowing Home Field Advantage effects to be turned off. Turning this toggle off will turn off Home Field Advantage as well as all M-Factors.

Progression and Regression Sliders:

There are now age-based progression sliders in addition to position-based ones. Players will progress at a rate based on the average of their age and position settings. Regression sliders have been added for both age and position, and a player’s rate of regression will also be based on the average of their age and position.

Free Agency Negotiations Per Stage:

Commissioners can now set the number of Free Agents a team can negotiate with during each stage of free agency. Each stage can be set to 1, 3, 5, 10, or Unlimited.

Draft Timer:

The draft timer will now have an option to be either ON or OFF. When on, it will function as normal and while off, picks will not advance until they’re made by the CPU or User. In addition, we’ve added the ability for Co-Commissioners to advance the draft allowing for more flexibility if your commissioner and whoever is on the clock happen to step away.
Draft Generators

You might be asking yourself what is a draft generator? It’s a loaded term but the short answer is that they’re the heart of every draft within franchise mode. Each prospect you see while scouting and scouring the draft board is the result of a draft generator. Last year, we added over 30 new generators to “break the mold” and offer fresh and fun new opportunities when scouting and drafting. In Madden NFL 24, we’ve added over 50 new generators to the mix to continue last year’s initiative and provide more fun, dynamic and memorable draft experiences. Some of these prospects include:
Generational Prospects:

In Madden NFL 23 we introduced some of the best prospects to ever appear in Madden via our Generational prospect generators. Heading into Madden 24 we wanted to continue to provide users with the ability to find these gems and cover the gaps that we were unable to fill in Madden NFL 23. This year there will be generational prospects available at every single position with new generational prospects across the offensive line and at fullback, tight end, defensive end, safety and even punter. These prospects will come into the league ready to start immediately with the highest possible DEV trait for their position.
“99 Club” Prospects:

Again building off the foundation of what we introduced in Madden NFL 23, there will be more ‘99 Club’ prospects this year that will enter the league elite in a specific area of their game. Be on the lookout for new running back prospects with top end Break Tackle and Injury, Wide Receivers with 99 Juke Move, Guards with 99 Impact Block or even a perfectly hydrated hitting machine at linebacker with 99 Hit Power.
Utility Prospects:

In reading feedback regarding the types of prospects that you wanted to see, there was a common theme amongst wanting more out-of-position type generators as well as prospects that were more multi-dimensional than we currently offered. Based on that feedback, we added a number of generators this year that go well beyond their assigned position. We have a couple QB generators that will come in with receiver attributes and can be moved to wide receiver or tight end. Some other exciting generators we’ve added include a CB generator based around being a former WR as well as a massive defensive tackle that also possesses some ball carrier skills.
Injury Prone Prospects:

The age old saying is the best ability is availability and that’s something you’ll have to strongly consider this year as we’ve included some elite prospects with one catch – they have incredibly low injury ratings. Pay attention when scouting and drafting as you’ll have to seriously question whether to risk it all on an elite prospect who may spend most of their time watching from the sidelines.
Other Draft Class Updates:

• Adjusted the weight and frequency at which each archetype can generate at each position to more closely match real-life rosters. Previously, each archetype at a position would have virtually the same chance of being generated when a class was created. In Madden NFL 24, we adjusted the weights of each archetype so the more rare builds like slot corners, scrambling quarterbacks and deep threat receivers will generate less frequently.
• Tuned the college selection for top-tier QB’s to weight bigger schools more heavily and reduce the amount of the top QB prospects that come from mid-major and lower level schools
• Normalized all prospects to a default Morale level to prevent any ratings changes when viewing players following the draft.
• Adjusted our generators to accommodate the new jersey number rules

Relocation

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This year, we wanted to revamp the way Relocation is handled within Franchise, making it more accessible and giving a visual refresh to the older style uniforms that have been in the game for years.

Relocation is no longer limited to owners – you can also relocate while playing as a coach. The process of relocating has changed, now allowing you to select your new city, team branding, and stadium immediately after choosing to relocate. Once you select your stadium, your relocation will be completed and you will be in your new city with your new team. You’ll be able to relocate again once the next season starts.

We’ve added 15 new cities that you can relocate to, for a total of 34 cities. The new cities are:

• Albuquerque, New Mexico
• Anchorage, Alaska
• Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Canton, Ohio
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Louisville, Kentucky
• Melbourne, Australia
• Montreal, Canada
• Omaha, Nebraska
• Paris, France
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Tokyo, Japan
• Vancouver, Canada
• Virginia Beach, Virginia

The way names/logos work has also been updated. Previously, each city had 3 name choices that were limited to that particular city. Name choices are no longer tied to the city, rather being available no matter where you move. The Oilers, however, remain exclusive to Houston.

Uniforms have been entirely refreshed. Previously, you would select a uniform set and only have access to that home and away uniform. Now, selecting a logo choice lets you access the unique home, away, and alternate uniform for that logo. This will allow 9 uniform combinations per team.
Salary Cap Management

Managing the Salary Cap has always been a critical component to building a championship roster. This year we bring two more pieces into the fold: Contract Restructuring and the 5th Year Option. Keep your young talent within the organization longer and open more opportunities for growth by leveraging these unique NFL contract dynamics.
Contract Restructuring:

Contract Restructuring allows a team to reduce a player’s current year salary, distributing that money as bonus to the remaining years, including current, of their contract. This act provides immediate salary cap relief with the downside of having increased the value of the remaining years of a player’s contract.

During the season this may be used as a necessary step towards bringing in a free agent or making the money work when trying to acquire more talent through trades. In the offseason this can be used to extend players on expiring deals or make high profile signings in free agency that previously wouldn’t be possible due to a team’s cap situation.

Not all players are eligible to have their contracts restructured. A player must have multiple years remaining on their contract and be making more than the league minimum salary. Players on rookie contracts cannot be restructured until they’ve completed their third season in the league per NFL rules.

In Franchise, the process to restructure has been made simple. Eligible players will have an additional “Restructure” option on their player card. In addition to this flow we have also added a single button Restructure option to the Team Salaries screen. Prior to confirming you will be shown the effects of the restructure on current salary cap and future year increases so you can make sure you are getting the relief you need to make your next big move.
5th Year Option:

The 5th Year Option is a mechanic available for all players selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. The option gives a team a choice to include a 5th year to a rookie's contract calculated based upon salaries of other players at their position and whether they have made a Pro Bowl in their career to date. The 5th Year Option must be either accepted or declined by the team after the player completes their 3rd season in the league and prior to the start of their 4th season.

In previous Madden titles, you may have noticed the 5th Year Option Scenario that appeared in the offseason. This was an easy to miss surprise for most users and one that was unavailable to CPU controlled teams. To fix this, the 5th Year Option has been fully integrated into the Re-Sign system and screens for users and CPU alike. During the season you will see your eligible players appear at the end of the Re-Sign list with their current projected earnings for the 5th year. Once in the offseason these players will move back into the list and the final earnings will be updated on the card. This is when the final decision is made. Pick up the option if you have determined the player is critical to your roster and deserving of the increased compensation or move on and make the decision to extend the player normally the following season.
Player Value & Logic Improvements:

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While we challenge every user to create and maintain the greatest dynasty the NFL has yet to see, the real competitor in almost all leagues are the CPU controlled teams. For these teams Player Value is the most important metric in their behavior. We have continued to refine these calculations this year with a focus on decision making in regards to re-signing players. CPU teams will better identify key players and take more care in offering the perfect contract.

One challenge with improving CPU logic is the lack of interaction or impact to user controlled teams. We wanted to highlight this work by making some small but noticeable changes. When choosing whether to extend players during the season, you will now see the list ordered based upon how your team’s front office values the players. We have also made the decision to unlock all players early in the season to give the option to re-sign any and all players right away. This includes any player acquired through in-season free agency or trades. We hope this added information and freedom will help everyone make more informed and planned decisions throughout the entirety of the NFL season.
Talent Tree Expansion

Head Coaches, Coordinators and Player Personnel now feature 3 full Talent Trees. With new Trees came a new emphasis: Choice. Most Trees are now set up with A and B pathing, where once selected, you will no longer be able to purchase Talents on the other side of the Tree. These paths are geared towards a dynamic within a given playstyle or other themes to make every choice clear.
Head Coach and Player Personnel:

Head Coaches and Player Personnel can specialize between developing the offensive or defensive positions whether it be Training XP for Coaches or Signing likelihood with your Player Personnel department.
Offensive & Defensive Coordinators:

Offensive and Defensive Coordinators have seen a complete overhaul with 12 new trees available each. The combinations of these trees will create experts in different playstyles which present a whole new approach to developing your staff to get the best out of your roster. With 2 playstyle trees and one single positional “Guru” tree it is more important than ever that the coordinators you choose to lead your players align with the game plan of your team.
Miscellaneous Updates

• Ability Slots
• Morale Tuning
• Scouting UI Improvement