An Early Look at Madden NFL 17 Presentation

[4thQtrStre5S]

Just got to voice my view - It is frustrating, with all the AI issues in Madden, such as no gap control or gap assignments for defense, that need much attention, but seems to be pushed to the backseat, with all these requests for updated equipment, or crowd animations or half-time and post game stuff..So I am beginning to feel that too many people want a good looking game as opposed to a game that uses realistic logic and football fundamentals....

I can understand wanting to feel immersed in the game; but why not have the players in the locker room, getting ready for a game and getting a pep talk? Or maybe show the players at half time in the locker room in front of a white board and allow the user to change playbooks?

I can personally see why Madden just seems to tread water from year to year.

[khaliib]

Quote: Originally Posted by jpdavis82

5 other hidden types of shoes? If they're hidden how do you know that?

I miss spoke, after checking my notes, there are 14 additional shoes.
- We can use shoes 1-15, but they go up to 29.
- I'm assuming they must get permission or work a deal out with Nike/Under Armour before we see the rest of them.

It would be nice if we could edit/set different color schemes for the ones we currently have access to.

[SportsGamer94]

Well it's a good thing they changed the pre-game presentation from the way it's been the past two years but I don't really like this photo, never seen that in a real NFL pre-game, why can't thy just do what we see on Sundays or give us multiple intros like in NBA 2K, Madden intros get stale after just a few games you start to skip them, in NBA 2K I still watch the intros because usually theirs one I haven't seen in a while.
Also, seems like player models still have the Kangaroo Syndrome, where the knees of the players are always slightly bent even when standing strait up, it looks weird.

[DeuceDouglas]

Quote: Originally Posted by 4thQtrStre5S

Just got to voice my view - It is frustrating, with all the AI issues in Madden, such as no gap control or gap assignments for defense, that need much attention, but seems to be pushed to the backseat, with all these requests for updated equipment, or crowd animations or half-time and post game stuff..So I am beginning to feel that too many people want a good looking game as opposed to a game that uses realistic logic and football fundamentals.... I can understand wanting to feel immersed in the game; but why not have the players in the locker room, getting ready for a game and getting a pep talk? Or maybe show the players at half time in the locker room in front of a white board and allow the user to change playbooks? I can personally see why Madden just seems to tread water from year to year.

This argument comes up every year but they're not mutually exclusive. This is no different than the people that want franchise improvements or anything else that isn't gameplay. They have teams that work on this stuff. Unfortunately it seems like the art team has spent the last several years trying to correct all the uniform mistakes though. I want new equipment more than anybody but it doesn't mean I'd ever take it over revamped, intelligent AI or other high-quality gameplay improvements. At the end of the day, gameplay will always trump all. But when we get screenshots like this that has to do with strictly presentation and aesthetics, not gameplay, the fact that the equipment shown is still the same from like M10 can't help but be brought up.

[bloobloouk]

Guys, this is clearly an unplanned, leaked screenshot of an early build of the game!

First off, let's debunk any potential rumour that "EA planned for this to be posted" - the game is obviously running in debug mode, given the text running down the left side. It's a photo (a low res one!) of a monitor that isn't in optimum lighting conditions. If you wanted to leak a screen wouldn't you want it to look as good as possible?

Ok, now on to a (yet another!) quick lesson in how development works. A development build typically won't include every new addition to a game; things are added incrementally to make it easier to identify issues. This far out from release there are probably multiple builds at any given time, and this one will have been the most stable and is therefore being used for previews.

We don't know exactly what updates are in each build, so you cannot definitively say what is and isn't being added, even if we had a leaked video of someone playing CFM for several hours. Given you can't make assumptions based on a hypothetical leaked video, how can you draw such wide conclusions from a screenshot? YOU CAN'T!

With some games you might have the final four months committed to QA, but we know Madden can't function that way given the annual release cycle, they take a more agile approach to development. That means that new things are still being added, heck last year they were adding things just a couple of weeks before launch.

Finally, we all know that EA like to keep a few things hidden - they do it every year! New art assets would be one of the easiest things for them to do this with. They are time consuming to produce, but should be one of the quickest elements to add and remove from a game build. Ergo, if they have made lots of changes in this department, don't expect it to be the first thing they show.

/End rant

I like the look of this so far. People have been clamouring for more attention to presentation, and I think this builds well on last year's improvements.

I'd love to have a ticker, but I've explained a few times why I can't see this being implemented without a fundamental change to how CFM handles the weekly cycle. Happy to repost if anyone would like a refresher :-)

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

[jfsolo]

The equipment argument is so interesting to me, because I literally can't tell any difference between various helmets, cleats, pads, etc., yet for some people it actually affects their decision to purchase the game.

As far as presentation goes, I know that some people are going to fight against it til the end of time, but EA is never going to take the path of, "we're going to limit ourselves to making an attempt to mirror only what is seen on TV broadcasts in real life." NEVER. They've been pretty transparent about their presentation philosophy. So one can still be upset and rail against their decisions on that front, but it's like hoping that they remove MUT from the game. It's just something that isn't going to happen.

[TheBleedingRed21]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheWalkingCash

It shows that no new equipment has been added yet again.

Why would ONE EARLY screenshot, give away any new details that aren't announced? You guys get so worked up. Just relax.

[MajorSupreme]

I actually think this is pretty cool, but only if this is used for primetime and playoff games. Rather keep the CBS style lineup presentation for other games.