By now Madden 17 has about run its course. We still have time before the next edition of Madden to be released, so it’s time to start thinking about new features we would like to see implemented in Madden 18. Here’s my wishlist for Madden 18. Because of length I’ll breakdown specific areas of Madden I’d like to see in three articles.
Commentary
To me personally, nothing beats watching football or playing Madden than having John Madden and Pat Summerall doing the broadcast commentary. But those days are long gone now. While the commentary in 17 wasn’t bad and definitely with weekly updates, finally the commentary in Madden felt fresh. There’s always room for improvement. I’d like to see commentary updated weekly for CFM. I’ll go more into detail when I go over the CFM wishlist for Madden 18. After the first season of your franchise, it feels like the commentary is the same week after week.
I think EA should add updated stats to the commentary. For example if your RB needs 90yds for 1000 or if a player is coming back from injury talk about that. Discuss if a player is close to retirement, will he keep playing or hang it up? Or what about a player in his contract year. Will he resign with his team or take his talents elsewhere. Just vaguely speaking of a dangerous WR or a 1st year QB just gets boring. Speaking about the daily changes in CFM will make it feel like your in the NFL. Hopefully EA will address this issue further, but they’re definitely heading in the right direction.
Gameplay
Here’s one of my main gripes with Madden. Although Madden has made many strides to improve gameplay and logic, this still is a problem. For years now we are still dealing with the same issues of money plays, nano blitzes, & just cheesy plays. I played ten online games in a row and I thought I was playing the same person, because mostly now everyone searches YouTube for plays or exploits to gain an advantage. You shouldn’t be able to to use four or five plays on offense and defense and win.
A feature that needs to be either completely removed or toned down is the jump snap feature. I understand it’s part of the game but you shouldn’t be able to user control a low rated DE and get by a higher rated offensive lineman with ease and wreck havoc in the backfield every time.
In Madden 18, I would like to see realistic play calling. In previous editions I’ve seen people play cover 4 qtr defense against a three TE set and shutdown the pass and run. Also the drag and mesh route plays or passes to the flats are too effective. These type of plays are almost unstoppable and the only way to really try to stop it is you have to manually make adjustments and hopefully you have time to do so. If people want to run the same four or five plays then the CPU should adjust to it and stop it. It’s ridiculous you have all these plays in the playbook and you’re only using four. There should be a counter to every play.
It seems as though EA caters to the offense because the defense waits too late to react to the offensive plays such as drag and mesh routes. Even throwing to the flats, the defense watches the play then reacts late. Shading is broken. I’m hoping EA fixes this soon.
There’s so many things that need changing in Madden. What are some things you want to see changed or fix? Check out part two of my Madden 18 wishlist coming soon.
UE GameWire was a community contributor to ICXM, writing 3 articles in 2017 covering opinion pieces, and Xbox news. ICXM operated as an independent Xbox and Windows gaming outlet through the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative, drawing from a rotating bench of editorial volunteers.