It’s been a rather busy month or two leading up to the release of Madden 19. That hasn’t stopped me from getting some much needed slider adjustments and tuning done for Franchise Mode.
Madden has continuously put me in a position where I feel like I should be playing on All Madden for difficulty. The problem with that is All Madden forces you to cheese and play in an un-sim sort of way because the CPU resorts to cheating and thus resulting in the paradox of who cheated who first?… or is it ‘whom’?
Regardless, these sliders are for
Franchise Mode
All Pro Difficulty
13 Minute Quarters
accelerated play clock set to 14 seconds.
Human Sliders
QB Acc – 50
Pass Block – 55
WR Catch – 50
Run Block – 51
Fumbles – 50
Pass Def – 50
Interceptions – 50
Tackling – 45 (I might take this slightly lower as it seems to directly correlate with Run Defense)
CPU Sliders
QB Acc – 50
Pass Blocking – 53
WR Catching – 50
Run Blocking – 100
Fumbles – 50
Pass Def Reaction – 50
Interceptions – 50
Pass Coverage – 50
Tackling – 50
Special Teams
Set Punt Accuracy to 100 all others at 50
Game Options –
Injuries – 10
Fatigue – 70
Min Player Speed Thresh – 45
Auto Subs
Position In/Out
QB = 95/65
HB = 100/95
WR = 94/80
FB/TE = 90/77
OL = 95/70
DT = 100/90
DE =96/84
LB = 96/85
CB = 95/83
S = 98/82
House Rules Are Simple.
You can’t trade for any first round pick without including at least an 80+ OVR player under 30 years old and a 2nd and 5th OR a 3rd and 4th rounder.
No editing players in the draft class with intent of drafting them late in the draft.
Pick as many different plays as you can throughout the game. This will give you a better experience rather than using money plays. It will keep games close and give you a bit more information on which players you have that you might want to keep or let go.
Make your own rules if you have to in order to stay honest and keep the game fresh.
FINAL THOUGHT
Madden 19 is probably my favorite Madden to date. There are some things that need to be tuned and patched, no doubt. However, it is excellent in terms of player movement and is getting better with playcalling, it still has a lot of room to grow, but it is growing.
Also, please don’t user control your WRs. Let the AI make the catches and you will be amazed at some of the great animations. I am about 50/50 on controlling DBs on passing plays.
As promised, here are the official NoobTubeTV settings (version 1.0) and sliders for your CFM.
A few things before you dig into these. Yes, I have nerfed the CPU run blocking. This is because I have played against enough players like Jeremy Hill and such that simply run over every tackle attempt that I chose to even it up a bit. I am considering turning CPU Run Block up to 20 as I keep playing, but so far I have been having great games (especially in my second season).
Also, be sure to set the auto-subs before the season if you want to get the proper stats for starters and backups.
I set the quarter length to 12 minutes because 15 was giving me far too many plays and high scores. Setting it at 12 minutes is a great sim experience that will give you about 65 plays per game depending on how quickly you snap the ball, etc.
One final tip… When running the ball you should NEVER hit the sprint button until the play has developed and then speed burst through the hole.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask!
Settings
Instant Starter – ON
Salary Cap – ON
Skill Level – All Madden
Quarter Length – 12 Minutes
Accelerated Clock – On
Minimum Play Clock – 15 Seconds
Game Speed – Normal
Player Progression – Every 4 Weeks
Coach Firing – On
Gameplay Tuning – Yes
Injury – On
Pre-Existing Injury – OFF
Trade Deadline – On
Trade Type – Enable All
Relocation Settings – Off
League Type – All
Auto Strafe – Off
Heat Seeker – On
Ball Hawk – On
Camera – Standard
On-Field Visual – Off
Def. Tackle Indicator – Off
Kicking Arc – On
Passing Camera – On
CPU Settings (CFM)
All set to OFF besides Game Prep (Game Prep is a complete waste of time)
SLIDERS HUM/CPU
QBA 55/40
Pass Block 50/50
WRC – 50/41
RBK – 53/15
FUM – 45/35
PDR – 75/55
INT – 50/40
PCV – 70/53
TAK – 60/45
Special Teams
FGP – 50
FGA – 50 (If you set this below 50 you will get the terrible accuracy glitch that basically makes your kick arc go crazy)
PPW – 50
PAC – 100 (CPU punters are terrible, EA needs to fix this legacy issue)
In any sports game it is often the most desired game mode but it is also one of the hardest to have any sort of real longevity with – Franchise/Association/Connected Careers Mode.
Sports gamers often have to deal with a few different issues that keep them from playing more than one season (or even just one season). If you are one of the many gamers that suffer from these issues we will supply you with a few different solutions for giving you a more successful and longer lasting personal career/franchise mode.
Winning Too Much, Too Fast – Most of the typical elitists out there will get on your case if you are winning ‘too much’ and tell you that you need to turn your sliders up a few notches. While this might be the case (and often is) there are other means of making your game a bit more challenging.
The first is playing the game in a manner that takes your superior decision-making out of the equation and allowing the game to provide a decent challenge. In football games you will often see either an ‘Ask Madden’ or ‘Suggested Play/Pitch’ option – use that to the utmost and avoid making any changes to that play in order to keep the AI functioning. You will often notice that the CPU ‘cheats’ as you change plays on the fly. This is often a function of the game trying to challenge you. The AI doesn’t have the complex decision functions that you have in your head (yet), so be sure to let the game give you the challenge it is trying to give you.
Secondly, you may want to stop turning off the system before you lose a game. Losing sucks but you know what sucks more? Playing and winning every game, every season and then losing interest because your team is ‘so amazing’ that it is boring now. Do yourself a favor and be honest about your infatuation with winning every game. No NFL team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins has gone undefeated and one the Super Bowl. No Major League Baseball team has ever gone undefeated and the same can be said for pretty much every other league and sport around. Build your team and allow for the game to challenge you.
Thirdly, turn up the difficulty (there I said it). If this means turning the human sliders to ‘0’ because you are the greatest Madden gamer of all time, do it. Really the only person you have to answer to is yourself and it is mind-boggling to me how many people will say the game is too easy when they really aren’t challenging their gaming abilities past what they feel is ‘fair’.
Broken Progression – This was and is an issue with the hardcore Madden community as well as every other sports game. No one is ever happy with the way players grow in sports gaming – ever. It is much like anything else with people – you can’t make everyone happy all of the time. The best approach can be found in 2K Sports games and Madden 12 where you can go and edit the ratings of any and every player in the game to your heart’s content. Yet, there are still people out there that want to complain about that even being an option because they expect some sort of magic progression system for players.
Sadly, outside of the option to edit every rating for every player you will have to take it upon yourself to learn how the progression system ‘works’ and make it work for you. Madden 13 is largely dependent on production and XP growth based on what your players are doing on the field. While this makes a lot of sense to people it is totally wrong in the eyes of others that think some sort of mythological ‘potential’ rating is the way to go.
Too Easy To Build Team – Do yourself a favor and unleash your inner Billy Beane. Start building your team as if you’re on the strictest of budgets. Limit your potential contract offers to a set amount and you will quickly find that quality players are much harder to come by.
Another direction is to build in the exact opposite manner – spend big money on big players. A good starting point is to determine/find a franchise player. Whether it is a quarterback in football or a cornerstone like Albert Pujols in baseball, put your money where your hopes are and make it a big contract. This will help limit your spending in other parts of your roster.
Can’t Pick A Team – This is something that most people find to be a common problem and it is often the primary reason why a single-player career mode/franchise mode ends within the first three seasons. You have a few options that can help you in this journey to finding longevity in franchise mode.
The first option is finding a team that needs a lot of work. Often you will find the most fun in building one of the worst teams in the game. In Madden, you will often find that a team like the Browns needs quite a bit of help. In that same breath, you can use teams like the Indians, Marlins or Astros in a baseball game or a team like the Sacramento Kings in basketball games.
The second option is changing your team after a few seasons. Thankfully, in most sports games this is an option after every season. If you win a few championships with a team and you want a change of pace, quit that team in the off-season and take the worst team in the league and try to build them into a contender that will last long after you leave. The best way to see if you have truly built a great team is to build them up and then find a new job. Track the progress of your old team and it will be like watching a Chia Pet grow wild.
Yet another direction you can go with a team in franchise mode is setting up an online story for people to follow. This will allow you to have a deeper connection to the team you are using and a bit of ownership to keep other people updated on what’s going on. In many cases, you will find that it gives you the ability to become a better storyteller. Also, you should take this as an opportunity to completely change the team to your liking. While this is certainly something that most people think when going into their career mode they usually let their interest go by the wayside.
For those of you clamoring for a more challenging experience in Madden 13 – look no further. These sliders are tough and they will give you some close games.
I highly suggest you use GameFlow as it seems to help make the game play a bit more realistically and it also keeps you from running money-plays like Power-O with motion, etc.
The CPU running game is terrible in Madden 13, so in this case we have made an effort to fix this through upping the speed threshold as well as taking down the Human run defense sliders.
For the passing game, you need to make sure that your players are open. Close man coverage and forced passes will often lead to interceptions.
As soon as you start playing a sports game – whether it is the tip-off, first pitch, face-off or even kick-off… it is never a true simulation and it will never be.
With the release of Madden 13 in only one week there are a lot of people huffing and puffing around the sports gaming forums about whether or not Madden 13 is a true simulation or (in many other cases) pouting in digital print that it doesn’t represent the game as they would like to see it on a video game.
I am not here to take sides. If this were a war I would be the guy in Switzerland that is right on the border watching the idiotic fighting and on occasion maybe taking a few shots at either side if I get bored. So, before you come clamoring at my comments section saying something like the visitor we had in early July. Basically we are in a situation where there is no right answer to this multi-faceted question(?) or demand(?) – How can a company create a perfect simulation sports game?
To answer in short… they can’t. At least in this regard they can’t create a game that is perfect in the eyes of everyone (or anyone). As soon as you join a sports gaming forum or community you will see quite a few fanboys for certain games and then you will see the end of the spectrum that devote their sports gaming life to lobbying for certain features, animations, uniform colors, equipment and every other tiny detail to be the way they want it to be. It isn’t a question of if they are right or wrong; it is a notion of their opinions holding any water at all.
Undoubtedly, you will eventually also start telling people in the community about a great game you played with the Cavs and you beat the Miami Heat; or how you want the Super Bowl with the Browns or the National Championship with Western Michigan and how you had a fantastic experience. The response you will get almost every single time…
“Sounds like you need to up the difficulty or change your sliders! No way in hell the Browns will win the Super Bowl!”
On occasion, I have even been guilty of making such comments or posting such news about my own career mode. Either way it goes, the bottom line is that one man’s great time in gaming is another man’s slap in the face to all things ‘simulation’ or “SIM” as the community likes to call it.
What Is ‘Sim’?
There are multiple levels in which you can subjectively build your own criteria for what makes your experience feel like a ‘true simulation’ (for some reason I am picturing myself as the pretentious Dr. Frasier Crane when I say that).
We will start with some basics for football (American Football)
– Kick or punt on 4th down when out of field goal range
– Don’t run the same play more than (insert quantity here) times
– Don’t sub players out of position for speed purposes
– Don’t make trades that ‘wound never happen’ (we will cover this later in more detail)
– Don’t nano blitz
Now that we have our brief list of guidelines for how to play the game in a more simulated fashion we should be ok, right?
Wrong! Because if you don’t have your sliders set up ‘right’ you won’t have the optimum experience with challenging opponents in the CPU. We won’t go into the sliders – just know that there are groups of gaming intellectuals out there that smell and caress them like a fine wine that must be nurtured and built into perfection. The moral of this brief trip into the social world of sports gaming is that it is full of opinion, conjecture and a bunch of gym class heroes that might have played division 3 college football with Uncle Rico… and they want you to love and respect their opinions.
Don’t Sign That Free Agent – It Isn’t ‘Sim’
As soon as you start a career in Madden 13 as a coach you will probably want to look at the Free Agents available. However, you should probably keep in mind that if you are a Browns fan like me and you want to target someone like Shaun Merriman or Plaxico Burress you shouldn’t tell your fellow ‘sim’ nazis on the forums.
“They would never sign with your team in real life!” is usually the response you will get.
Welcome to the Sim Gaming Club – where we try to feel like we are important and know more about sports than anyone else.
The rebuttal should be (but not on the forums – that is how you get banned from their Empire Club) –
“No… really? Who knew that the Browns would also hire ME to COACH THEIR TEAM and then make trades, sign players and even draft new players next season – STFU!?”
The point is that once you take control of anything in the game, whether it is as a coach or a player on the field and you are making decisions that influence the game it is officially a form of entertainment. Don’t let someone else ruin your entertainment on forums. You wouldn’t go to a movie and put up with some know-it-all behind you pointing out how Jason Bourne’s form of martial arts isn’t true ju jitsu. You would either ignore him or tell him to shut his mouth. This approach should be taken with ‘sim’ nazis as well. Although, I highly suggest that you either ignore them or be polite if you want to stay in the community.
The Bottom Line
I am here to tell you to have a good time and play the game however the hell you want to. If you want some help or guidance on either the finer points of the game or maybe you even want to know what my settings or opinion is on settings, let me know through our comments section, send us an email at officialnoobtubetv@gmail.com or send us a message on our Facebook Page.
We are only a few days from the release of NCAA 13 and just over a month from Madden 13. That being said, you can almost smell the football in the air. Unfortunately, you can also smell the elitist sports gamers over the internet. Readying their little fingers to type angry messages in response to your excited Franchise Mode Connected Career performance updates that may or may not include winning a Super Bowl with the Cleveland Browns in 2013.
Usually your success with a ‘weaker’ team is going to be attributed to your Slider Settings. These wonderful additions to sports games have been around for awhile. They are meant to act as a way for you (the end user) to tune the gameplay in order for you to either make the game play like your opinion of simulation (or Arcade – which Madden is usually a fine example of every year). It then becomes a war of words and Slider Settings in the messageboards and sports gaming communities.
Your typical interaction with a slider nazi could sound (read) like this.
———
You – I just won the Super Bowl with the Browns! It was amazing! We managed to sweep the AFC North behind the amazing play of Trent Richardson (led the league in rushing and TDs) and our under-rated defense! We beat the Cowboys 24-10 as Brandon Weeden connected with Josh Cribbs on a screen pass that ended up sealing the deal late in the game!
Responding (Hater) Slider Nazi – You obviously have to change your sliders! There is no way the Browns will EVER win a Super Bowl, let alone this year. You need to make sure your run blocking is tuned down if Trent Richardson is leading the league as a rookie. Not to mention the fact that the Browns are terrible… wow. big props to you on beating the weak CPU to a pulp. Did you have the difficulty set to Rookie?
———
There are two ways to look at this conversation and neither of them is necessarily wrong.
1 – If you enjoy your game, no one should be able to tell you how to enjoy it otherwise. If you truly have a good time winning the Super Bowl with ANY team, let alone a team like the Browns, Cavaliers, Kansas City Royals, Western Michigan or Columbus Blue Jackets… more power to you.
2 – There is something to be said for a game giving you a challenge. While the reactions of many sports gamers (such as the example above) are blown out of proportion, you should often consider if your sliders are providing you with the best challenge while still being fair to both sides. I have played 18 Collective Seasons in Madden 12’s Franchise Mode with teams such as the Browns, Bears and Jaguars. I won a few Super Bowls with the Browns and decided I wanted a new challenge so I switched teams and tweaked my sliders. It was three seasons before I won a Super Bowl with the Bears and the Jaguars team I inherited after leaving the Bears is going to be rough to work with.
A few people have sent messages about what sliders we are using/recommending for Madden 12.
Here you go!
That isn’t White Castle’s delicious sandwiches you smell… It is our very own set of sliders… In May no less!
NTTV Sliders/Settings Settings –
10 Minute Quarters
Playcalling – Conventional
Acc Clock – 15 Secs
Cam – Standard
Auto Sprint and Strafe – OFF
Injury – 15
Fatigue – 55
Game Speed – Slow
Speed Thresh – 5
Penalties
Offside – 99
False State – 54
Holding – 52
Facemask – 55
DPI – 99 (Rarely Called)
OPI – 99 (Even more rare than DPI)
KR/PRI – 99
Clipping – 25 *Down this low because many kickoff returns will get called back because your blockers are stupid.
Int Grounding – 99 (CPU Is Never Called for this)
Rough Passer – 55
Rough Kicker – 99
USER/CPU
QBA – 40/30
PBK – 15/75 *You will have between 2.5-4 seconds to get a pass off most of the time. Sometimes less, sometimes more.
CTH – 20/55
Rush Defense
React – 18/30 *This is being actively looked at. Stopping the run can be a slippery slope in either direction easy or hard.
BLKS – 18/22
TAK – 25/10
SPECIAL TEAMS
FGP – 50 *With the right wind, you can kick a 65 Yarder with a 99 KPW.
FGA – 50
PPW – 55
PAC – 70 *Makes it a little bit more realistic to get kicks to the corner.
KPW – 50
…and now for the little disclaimer for all the slider/sim nazis out there.
Yes, these sliders have faults and no they aren’t perfect. They are set up for the user to have an enjoyable yet challenging game. It may take a little bit of tweaking for you to find your perfect settings, but we hope these are a good start for you!
NoobTubeTV 