Making the Madden Preseason More Meaningful

To say the Madden preseason experience has become stale over the past few years would be an enormous understatement. While it’s safe to say the preseason is not the most exciting time of the NFL season either, there are some important elements of why the real-life teams value the preseason so much in setting the stage and getting themselves prepared for the regular season. Here are three ways in which the preseason could start to take on more meaning in our Connected Franchise Mode saves.

Hide Ratings/X-Factor Option

Hiding the ratings of players and/or enabling some sort of ratings-fog-of-war would immediately increase the importance of the preseason. For those unfamiliar, X-Factor is something that’s been used in games such as Front Office Football in which the default game roster is slightly randomized to allow for replay-ability and a bit of unpredictability in an online league environment.

Position Battles

This is something we’ve seen in Maddens of the past, and it was a step in the right direction that the sim community would likely welcome back. Position battles could be assigned by the game automatically, chosen by the user, or a combination of both.

Replace the XP System

What this would look like exactly is up for debate, but the solution to me would focus around a less is more approach in that I’d rather have progression and regression happen automatically in the background, with minimal user influence, and far less time spent in boring XP menus and practice drills. What do you think? What are some other ways in which EA Sports could make the Madden preseason more meaningful and interesting? Share your thoughts below after logging in via your forum account.