If you're one of the Madden faithful still grinding away for championships versus the best Ultimate Team pulls, this next Madden NFL 21 update is for you. Teased late last year in a longer blog post about what lies ahead for the game's original timesink, Franchise Mode, today EA and Tiburon have revealed the next batch of gameplay improvements to Madden's most sim-friendly mode.
The bulk of the changes are reflected in new commissioner abilities. A league's commish will soon be able to perform tasks such as undoing offseason free agent acquisitions, set teams to autopilot for the NFL Draft should they not be present, and customize some assist features on a per-team basis. This includes features such as Heatseeker, Ball Hawk, and Switch assist, which each make playing defense easier for teams who elect to use them. Previously, commissioners would need to activate those features leaguewide, but now each team can toggle them on or off as desired.
House Rules are soon migrating from MUT and Superstar KO game modes into Franchise. This means the commissioner may make it so teams can't call excessively call the same plays, in both a consecutive sequence as well as spread across an entire game. Using cooldown periods, players would lose access to some plays some of the time until the cooldown expired and unlocked plays again.
The last update brought many changes to X-Factor abilities, like giving players the opportunity to reselect which skills their Superstars and Superstar X-Factors would have. In this next update, commissioners can choose who has access to these revision tools, either just the commish, the entire league, or no one.
Draft logic for the CPU has been improved now as well, most notably in how the CPU will chase after top QB talent. New parameters promise that teams with young high-priced QBs won't go chasing another QB in subsequent drafts. Instead, they will show a more realistic commitment to see it through with their picks before eventually moving on if they don't work out. Here's how it works:
When a CPU team is on the clock, they will now deprioritize drafting a first round QB if:
- Their current starting QB was a 1st round pick in the last two Drafts
- Their current starting QB was a 2nd/3rd round pick in the last two Drafts
- And has a Normal Dev and 72+ OVR
- And has Star or higher Dev trait
- Their current starting QB is a 94+ OVR
- Their current starting QB is 87+ OVR and 32+ years old
- Their current starting QB is 74+ OVR and < 29 years old
- Their current backup QB is a Star or higher Dev Trait and < 28 years old
Lastly, if a team’s current starting QB is over 35, the team will consider drafting a replacement.
This update is due to arrive this month, with another title update focused on Franchise not far behind for February.
