An Early Look at Madden NFL 17 Presentation

[bpac55]

Man E3 is late this year, didn't it used to be in mid May?

[Dwaresacksqb]

Quote: Originally Posted by bpac55

Man E3 is late this yeah, didn't it used to be in mid May?

Not that I'm aware of. Past few years have been mid june. But I feel the same way. It's like Christmas, it just can't come soon enough.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by bpac55

Man E3 is late this year, didn't it used to be in mid May?

E3 in its current form has taken place during June since 2009 inclusive.

[Trick13]

Great! Another poorly implemented feature I gotta skip cuz of the play clock.
Dadgummit EA, learn to utilize the the full area of my gigantic tv. Put theses "presentation" features above the play call screen and figure out how to have them run in such a way that the play call screen smoothly transitions into the field view while these "presentation" features fade out as the gameplay screen grows to full screen as my team reaches the LOS!!!

Same with replays, solo play, online play should have frequent replays while the play call screen is the bottom half, heck even two player games could split the bottom into two halves and run replays and stats/presentation features up top.

I can not comprehend how EA has not arrived at this on their own...

[Gridiron]

Quote: Originally Posted by Trick13

Great! Another poorly implemented feature I gotta skip cuz of the play clock. Dadgummit EA, learn to utilize the the full area of my gigantic tv.

I know, right? Why can't we get a full screen playcall menu that's modern like the XBOX One NFL app or like a ESPN-style setup playcall screen? The floating column just isn't cutting it. We're all on big widescreens now, why are we being reduced to this newspaper column playcall menu?

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Trick13

Great! Another poorly implemented feature I gotta skip cuz of the play clock. Dadgummit EA, learn to utilize the the full area of my gigantic tv. Put theses "presentation" features above the play call screen and figure out how to have them run in such a way that the play call screen smoothly transitions into the field view while these "presentation" features fade out as the gameplay screen grows to full screen as my team reaches the LOS!!! Same with replays, solo play, online play should have frequent replays while the play call screen is the bottom half, heck even two player games could split the bottom into two halves and run replays and stats/presentation features up top. I can not comprehend how EA has not arrived at this on their own...

I'm glad we've decided the feature is awful and poorly implemented before we've seen it in motion or even know what it really is.

Presumably Tiburon makes the presentation elements full-screen to immerse people in the game of football, to show off their graphics and cutscenes, to provide context to the game commentary, and make the "broadcast" of the game authentic to real life and feel alive. This all is, you know, what people and have been banging on the drum for for forever.

Speaking from my personal point of view, I don't want a full-screen play call UI which removes me from the field at all, period. Being removed from the field - being ripped out of the continuous immersive experience - is a nonstarter for me. I also don't want a picture-in-picture dominated by the UI but with the game broadcast in the corner, that's equally as jarring to me and disruptive to my experience of the football game.

Finally, there's also the "Quick" presentation setting which removes most of the presentation elements if the non-gameplay sequences are getting in the way of you calling plays in a timely fashion.

[Gridiron]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

I'm glad we've decided the feature is awful and poorly implemented before we've seen it in motion or even know what it really is. Presumably Tiburon makes the presentation elements full-screen to immerse people in the game of football, to show off their graphics and cutscenes, to provide context to the game commentary, and make the "broadcast" of the game authentic to real life and feel alive. This all is, you know, what people and have been banging on the drum for for forever. Speaking from my personal point of view, I don't want a full-screen play call UI which removes me from the field at all, period. Being removed from the field - being ripped out of the continuous immersive experience - is a nonstarter for me. I also don't want a picture-in-picture dominated by the UI but with the game broadcast in the corner, that's equally as jarring to me and disruptive to my experience of the football game. Finally, there's also the "Quick" presentation setting which removes most of the presentation elements if the non-gameplay sequences are getting in the way of you calling plays in a timely fashion.

So having some floating columns covering up the "continuous immersive experience" is a better idea?

At least with picture-in-picture you're not getting some obstructive covering up of things you'd like to see.

But here is a novel idea: why not give people a choice? They already have like several different selectable playcall options, so they obviously realize not everybody likes the same playcall UI. Just add a full screen option, too. I need more functionality than the newspaper column style gives me, and I think the covering up the current playcall menu does is just contradictory to the visual experience.

[CM Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gridiron

So having some floating columns covering up the "continuous immersive experience" is a better idea? At least with picture-in-picture you're not getting some obstructive covering up of things you'd like to see. But here is a novel idea: why not give people a choice? They already have like several different selectable playcall options, so they obviously realize not everybody likes the same playcall UI. Just add a full screen option, too. I need more functionality than the newspaper column style gives me, and I think the covering up the current playcall menu does is just contradictory to the visual experience.

Choices are great and all but just hand-waving at a point of contention and say "give us choices!" doesn't make them happen, nor does it make their associated code easier to maintain, nor is the decision to make that choice available the most cost-effective way to make a game better.

Tiburon could probably make the current play-call menu full-screen without much issue - similar to how they made the same menu skinny with the Slim play call option with a Madden 15 title update. However, I'm going to guess that maximizing the current interface to fullscreen and nothing more than that whatsoever probably isn't what you want for this. To get something with a picture-in-picture on a second render target for replays and whatnot, wholesale layout changes to better work with the horizontal aspect ratio of full-screen, and maybe some live opponent tendency information which updates in-game to fill in negative space previously used by dynamic shots of the field and instant replays, they'd have to throw a bunch of their UI programmers at building a new screen.

Once one considers the fact that this new full-screen play call would be something that only a very small percentage of users would ever use, it is very easy to reach the conclusion that adding that choice into the game is a massive waste of resources. It doesn't give you the most bang for your buck compared to, say, a new big feature for Connected Franchise which requires the same UI programmers the same amount of time to implement (the UI engineers are their own team, are shared across all game modes, and are required to make any new menu-driven game feature work).

And this doesn't even get into the problems that more choices potentially introduces (pointed glare at the new kick meter UI options causing online desyncs in Madden NFL 15).

As it pertains to game development, "more choices" isn't the most reasonable solution to everything.