Do you remember when Madden had Mini-Camp Drills?
It was Madden 2003 that introduced Mini-Camp mode. Mini-Camp mode would put you in the shoes of an NFL player during Mini-camp, challenging you to complete training drills efficiently, aiming for a top score in order to unlock more drills.
Some of the drills included Trench Fight, which would see you controlling a Defensive Lineman and demanded that you do all you could to get past the Offensive Lineman on your way to the Quarterback. Or how about my favorite: QB Pocket Presence, which would see you avoiding little, yellow dots as a QB while you stayed in the “pocket” and completed passes to one of three receivers.
While these drills were fun and a nice change of pace, the thing most people enjoyed about the mode was seeing players in Training Camp gear. Seeing players in pads and shorts was a nice bit of immersion, and the training facilities were also something we hadn’t seen to that level before. Not only that, but Mini-Camp mode was a good way to practice the fundamental stick skills. Madden Mini-Camp was a nice new feature, but it was a fairly small part of Madden 2003. It wouldn’t be until the following year that Tiburon, the developers of the Madden franchise since the mid-90’s, would find an even more impactful use for their new mode.
For fans of Madden’s Franchise Mode, Madden 2004 was a large step forward. Not only did it introduce Owner Mode, with new features such as Team Relocation, but Tiburon took the Mini-Camp Mode they had debuted the year prior and found a use for it in Franchise Mode. During the off-season, you were given the option of running different players through all the Mini-Camp drills. The better you did in a certain drill, the more points you could assign to that player’s attributes. You were only allowed to do each drill once, forcing you to think about which players needed progression in that area the most. This was all on top of the well-balanced, natural progression and regression system that went on during the season.
One of the big features of Madden 2006 was an all-new Superstar Mode, where you would create an NFL Rookie and attempt to make your legend as an NFL player. In the mode, these mini-games were used to to evaluate your player’s talent level going into the NFL Draft. Superstar Mode was a fantastic feature, but we’ll save that for another time.
When Madden transitioned to the Xbox 360 and PS3, it seemed like Tiburon was not only keeping the Mini-Camp mini-games, but they were also improving and expanding on them. New drills were implemented, and the new and improved graphics showed off more detailed players in compression shirts. Things like weight benches and giant timing clocks accompanied the new drills like Bench Reps and the 40 Yard Dash. Despite the graphical overhaul, the drills were seen as much less fun than the drills seen in the previous generation of games. The mini-games continued in Madden for years, going largely untouched and never having the same influence on Franchise Mode as they once did. Finally, Tiburon ceased their inclusion in the game starting with Madden NFL 13, a game that was also controversial for re-branding Franchise Mode into Connected Careers.
If you look today, Madden NFL 16 gives you modes like Skills Trainer and The Gauntlet, both reminiscent of the ground-breaking Mini-Camp mode. However, Madden 16 could potentially benefit from the old model of Madden 2004.
One of the biggest complaints in current versions of Madden, as it pertains to Franchise Mode, has been the XP progression system. Starting with Madden NFL 13, the very game that removed mini-games, an XP reward system was put in place to allow you control over who progresses on your team and when. In Madden NFL 16, Drive Goals were introduced, which not only fundamentally changed how many played any given game in Franchise Mode, but also was a huge intrusion on the presentation, both in the game and in the menus.
The issue I see with this system is that we’re focusing too much on individual performances. Instead, we should be focusing on how our team matches up with our upcoming opponents and developing a gameplan around that. In it’s current form, most players are spending time looking through their roster, figuring out when to spend XP and game-planning on how to get their Tight End three touchdowns next game, instead of focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the other team. XP and Drive Goals takes such a front seat during the regular season that most players can’t help but be drawn towards that. Sure, we can always decide to delegate XP to the CPU, but XP is so crucial to Tiburon’s design of Franchise Mode that the mode feels even more shallow without it; deciding to do that essentially gives you even less to do.
However, if Tiburon were to shine the focus of player progression on Mini-Camps and Training Camp just before the season, we could all focus on game-planning and what is going on around our league during the regular season. It’s a matter of immersion, and Mini-Camp mini-games could not only be a fun break from practice and games, but could also take the ham-fisted nature of XP and Drive Goals and turn controllable progression into a digestible system. You don’t have to necessarily copy Madden’s of the past, either. You could add a risk/reward system in Training Camps where the more you train any given player, the higher chance they have for injury. If replicating real world football is the ultimate goal, which has been stated by Madden Creative Director Rex Dickson, then this system should be looked at
seriously.
Mini-Camp Mode is a feature that is often forgotten, and with the way it was implemented in Madden over the past 5 years it was included in the game, it’s easy to see why. However, in a game that has a yearly release and having one of it’s biggest complaints be the staleness of the product, looking at features like this (a different way to play that uses the same core gameplay as regular games, but has an impact on career modes) is definitely worth discussing.