Madden 20 isn't far away, and this site needs some updates and upgrades. There's a couple readyt to be pushed to the site, but there's more that I'm working on. One of those is a Discord bot. Here's what the admin section for it looks like right  now, but it is still in development. 

Ok, I've fixed a few bugs we discovered in the past week or two.

The biggest bugs were caused by me assuming that EA wouldn't reuse game and stat IDs from season to season, but I was wrong. Why they reuse those IDs, I have no idea. It goes against everything I know. As a result, game and player stats after season one were pretty sketchy for a while. I have implemented a band-aid of sorts, but it means the stats and games from previous seasons will not be available. I'm planning on fixing that though. 

There were some other minor fixes too, such as the draft round and pick number on player pages being corrected.

There is also now retirement detection. I am hoping they don't reuse player IDs too, but I'll find out in a test league before any of the real leagues get that far I hope. If they do, then I'll probably just have to end up deleting retired players and their associated stats, but I'd prefer to keep those around for historical purposes. 

Another big update some of you have noticed is simscores. Several leagues utilize simscores as a way to grade how "sim" each user is. This feature is designed to help with that but is still a work-in-progress. There will be a full blog post and help page on it when it is ready. It would be ready now if not for some of the bugs mentioned earlier that I had to fix. 

The GroupMe bots received a major upgrade late last night. League admins now have some more options with each bot.

• The command prefix can now be changed after creation
• Individual bots can be setup to post the following updates
• Post Scores: Enabling this will cause the bot to post game results in the chat when weekly stats are synced
• Post Rosters: This setting makes the bot post any roster moves when rosters are synced
• Post Trades: When trades are accepted, approved, or denied, the bot will post about it if this setting is enabled.
• Some of the core commands have updated messages. 

I recommend having 3 bots in your main chat. But don't feel obligated to have any. These bots will make my server work harder even if they aren't responding to commands. 

1. The first bot could be the one you interact with, the one that's going to respond to commands. 
2. The second might only post scores. Give it a prefix that is unlikely to ever be used.
3. The Third would post roster moves and trades. Again, give it a prefix that is unlikely to ever be used. This will ensure it doesn't respond to commands. 

The bot wasn't the only area upgraded. Player stats now show on team pages and other various errors were fixed. 

There have been some updates made to the site and more are coming this week. Occasionally there are growing pains in this process, but the end result will be better. 

A couple of the most noticeable changes so far is that the league and admin menus are now more mobile friendly and player portraits now work right everywhere. A couple of the more noticeable things that still need updating are the player stats on team pages and updating the attributes each position displays. 

I have just updated the import process to work with the Madden 19 Companion App. The next step is to update the frontend to show the new attributes. I also need to fix some frontend stuff I apparently broke a while back. That's hat I'll work on tonight and tomorrow. 

If you get any errors, let me know. 

EA finally released the new companion app! This means I can now update the site to work with it, which will take at least until tonight and maybe tomorrow night. Don't worry though, it'll all work great soon! 

Madden released for everyone last night and now everyone is waiting on the companion app. Once the app (or whatever medium they opt to use, preferably a website) then I can update the site accordingly to get it ready for Madden 19. 

In other news, I posted pricing for the site. You can see it by going to the link in the top navbar. It's the same monthly price I charged for my bot that piggy-backed off of the DaddyLeagues site. So, now you get a great bot plus a website for the same monthly rate or you can save money by paying for a whole Madden cycle. 

Also, preseason football has started and real football is getting closer and closer! Many of us are getting hyped up about our teams and think we'll win the Super Bowl as training camp reports are always glwoingly positive. However, the great majority of us will soon be disappointed. 

Have fun playing Madden and cheering for your team this season! 

That's right! If you haven't already pre-ordered this game, then I'm not sure what you are doing. This year's Madden looks like it might actually be an upgrade for CFM. Here's a list of what's been added, some of which are making a return. 

Player Archetypes Progression

This is an interesting change. Instead of simply going in and increasing specific attributes, we have to select an "archetype" that we want the player to progress as. Players will have overall ratings for each archetype, and upgrading an archetype will increase enough attributes to add one overall point to that archetype. 

Coach Scheme Fits

According to EA, scheme matters more this year. There appears to only be the broad offensive and defensive schemes this year, so no setting the scheme for each individual position. Players will get bonus XP if they are a scheme fit. 

Draft Class Creator

Custom draft classes have returned! Now you can create all your favorite NCAA players or NFL legends to have in a rookie draft. This is something we had a few years ago and didn't understand why it was taken out. It's good to see custom draft classes make a return. 

Depth Chart Positions

This is one of my favorite additions (before actually playing). There are now depth chart positions for some specific roles. You have a couple WRs you only want to be in the slot? Put them in the SLWR depth chart! Is there a specific player you want playing DT in obvious passing situations? Put him in the RDT spot. Be careful though, if your opponent knows you are doing this, you might get surprised with a run. 

Player Ratings

New player ratings have been added to further refine how the game plays. (And also to make my job harder.)  Some of the more interesting new ratings are break tackle, break sack, throw under pressure, and lead block. 

Immersive Environments

EA decided to change up the CFM menu a little with some different backgrounds. You'll get to see your coach's office or your player's locker. The new draft environment looks like a nice upgrade. 

Snapshots

This is a cool feature. A snapshot appears a big moment from a game. The last 100 snapshots in the league will be available for everyone to see. 

Team Captains

Team captains are back after being gone for some time. The only impact they have on the game is cosmetic though. The patch will be on their uniform and a star icon will appear under them in the game. 

Regression

It sounds like elite players will be able to have longer careers in this Madden. Regression is based on age and development trait., A player with superstar development will regress at a slower pace than other players. 

Dynamic Dev Trait

There will be a limited number of players at each position with each dev trait. Players are evaluated at the end of each season and given a new dev trait. If a player performed among the best at his position, that will be reflected in his dev trait for the next season. Conversely, if a superstar under-performs, he is likely to lose that dev trait. 

That's it from EA's CFM Deep Dive they did earlier. I think it looks like some nice upgrades for CFM, but we'll only know for sure once we can play.