Madden NFL 11 News Post

Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

11:18 PM - March 9, 2010 by splff3000

IGN has posted some Madden NFL 11 hints from the EA Season Opener.

Quote:


	"The average game took 63 minutes in Madden NFL 10, despite the fact that players were only playing football for 17 of those minutes. EA Sports promised that they'll deliver a faster experience in Madden NFL 11 for those who want to sit down and play for a few minutes and then get up and move on to the next activity. They gave no indication of how this would be accomplished, but if I was a betting man, I'd wager that they'll be adding a "hurry up" option to the list of presentation settings similar to what we see in this year's crop of MLB titles. Another interesting factoid had to do with playcalling. Madden NFL 10 included 330 plays. The average user used 13 of them. I'm not exactly sure how they're going to get people to explore the playbook, but some sort of simplification is clearly needed."

Game: Madden NFL 11Reader Score: 6/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes for game: 96 - View All

Madden NFL 11 Videos

Member Comments

# 21 ODogg @ 03/10/10 10:48 AM

Well said CreatineKasey - there is no AI that will probably happen in our lifetimes that will equal the human intelligence in both logic, skill and unpredictability. That's not EA's fault, that's simply the fact across the board for all video games today. And if you think it's EA's game AI then simply peek into a FPS thread sometime and read how people complain about the computer controlled enemies and squad mates vs. those of playing with their buddies.

# 22 Rocky @ 03/10/10 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CreatineKasey


	76% of Madden gamers play online. There's your answer offline franchise guys. It's not a big priority to them. I remember people claiming only 5% of Madden gamers play online and junk like that despite me arguing otherwise. Online franchise and other online functions such as game balance and solid gameplay are priorities for sure.

I wonder how many people play exclusively online and how many people play only a game or 2 online. I'm pretty sure that number is the people who have ever booted up or started an online game. A better representation would be players who have logged in 75 or more games.

You guys know that I love to play online....but life happens. There are instances where time is too valuable to get online and play a cheeser and the line of work I'm in....I can't make a league work. There are plenty of gamers who just want to sit down for a hour and be immersed. That's where I think Madden it's losing it's audience with.

:EDIT: Madden 2002 had in game saves....not to have them in Madden 11 would be INEXCUSABLE.

# 23 Rashad19 @ 03/10/10 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CreatineKasey


	I disagree. The reason people play online is that they want to compete against other people. It's the same way for most video games outside of RPG's. Think: even games with great story modes like MGS have online options. Sports are meant to be played against other people. The most engaging competition should and will come from another human mind trying to beat you. The computer is meant to lose. It's more depressing than anything to lose to a computer. It's meant to be beat. Sports games aren't made like other arcade games in the past such as Donkey Kong and Galaga. In the past, playing humans was limited so the computer was extremely difficult. That's just not the case in sports games. Even so, AI logic doesn't resemble what a human would do and therefore it really takes away from the immersion IMO. I think sports games are the pinnacle of online gaming right there with RTS. In fact, I try to view sports football games as a sports version of RTS. Playing it like a chess match is very enjoyable. Games like this thrive on human competition. The better they make the online experience, the better their product will do IMO.

Well said man! That's why so many of us are clamoring for improved game-play because in essence that is what gives the game life when playing against human competition. Don't get me wrong better presentation is a must but it's more of a byproduct of great game-play! No amount of crowd noise, announcing, replays, cutscenes etc....can cover up game-play issues IMHO.

# 24 ODogg @ 03/10/10 11:18 AM

The disagreement is you are faulting EA for not having AI that is comparable to a human and CreatineKasey and I are saying that is not something EA should be faulted for since no games do. Could it be better? Yes. But to fault them for offline not matching online play is unrealistic since AI in general is not there yet and probably won't be for a long, long time.

# 25 CreatineKasey @ 03/10/10 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rocky


	I wonder how many people play exclusively online and how many people play only a game or 2 online. I'm pretty sure that number is the people who have ever booted up or started an online game. A better representation would be players who have logged in 75 or more games. You guys know that I love to play online....but life happens. There are instances where time is too valuable to get online and play a cheeser and the line of work I'm in....I can't make a league work. There are plenty of gamers who just want to sit down for a hour and be immersed. That's where I think Madden it's losing it's audience with. :EDIT: Madden 2002 had in game saves....not to have them in Madden 11 would be INEXCUSABLE.

I bet most owners of Madden never play 75 games worth of football, online or offline. Most gamers aren't like us. They don't pick 1 game and put serious hours into it. There's plenty of casual gamers and guys who bounce back and forth from new games every month or two.

Massively Multiplayer Online games have kind of set a blueprint for getting a gamer to commit to your game. Think of Modern Warfare 2 and how it "unlocks" weapons and abilities as the gamer competes. That motivates many gamers to keep going. Madden's traditional matchmaking and leaderboards lack the motivation that other games give. Those progression markers are very addicting. Online Franchise is a wonderful step in that direction. Unfortunately unless you're hardcore about creating an offseason, it falls far short for most gamers. It's not for the causal fan this season.

Madden would greatly benefit from adding in some sort of "progressing over time" online function. They attempted that somewhat with the "Ultimate Team" function. Sadly, that mode didn't allow play with friends and was sorely tainted by the ability to purchase a good team. That idea can be enjoyable, but it was implemented very wrong. I'm guessing that feature is near dead at this point. Hopefully they learn from that and adjust accordingly.

If they can shave games down to 30 minutes (like Tecmo Super Bowl!) and create some kind of motivation to play games outside of 1 win on your ranked match list, they'll grow their fan base and hold onto their game owners for the better part of the season. I bet most guys are done with Madden by the end of September. I know I always was before Online Franchise.

# 26 raz77 @ 03/10/10 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IGN


	Another interesting factoid had to do with playcalling. Madden NFL 10 included 330 plays. The average user used 13 of them. I'm not exactly sure how they're going to get people to explore the playbook, but some sort of simplification is clearly needed."

Simplification is not needed. Add a tutorial on playcalling, beef up the instruction booklet, fix the exploits & broken plays to make more strategies viable, but don't go dumbing things down yet again.

# 27 kjcheezhead @ 03/10/10 11:42 AM

Wasn't adaptive AI put in place to make gamers use their whole playbook? Madden 11 is showing every sign that it just wants to bring in new/casual gamers. Most people who liked Madden 10 still felt it was just a step in the right direction and I don't see the leap from Madden 10-11 being that great right now.

# 28 randers @ 03/10/10 11:44 AM

You've been shedding too much light Lu
You make'em wanna make the game right Lu
They need to fiks the flats Lu
They're bringin NFL Blitz back Lu?
They're trying to get a better game Lu
They're starting to think that arcade football is lame Lu
They're trying to stop buying Yearly poopoo **
I'll tell you what you should do (Dumb it down)

**(not that this years or last year's versions were, I love the game <3)

# 29 KBLover @ 03/10/10 11:45 AM

I think it's less a case of the limitations of AI technology and more a case of EA not programming good AI. I think sports games can have AI that calls and plays a game a lot like a human can because we see humans doing it all the time.

We know how smart coaches think and smart (and not-so-smart) players play and act on the field. Program the decisions a real player would have to make into the player AI code. Program the decisions a coach has to make into the playcall AI code. Have tendencies and some randomness so it's not exactly the same all the time.

Heck, considering Madden "coaches" don't have to worry about nearly as much as real ones do in Madden 10 - it should be even simpler. Just evaluate personnel and playbook they want to run and get guys that fit together. Calculating ratings and attaching modifiers to various areas based on playbook on the AI side (for decision making purposes only) - probably a lot like how HC did it.

Don't talk to me about limits of AI tech until EA is pushing them. Funny RTS got brought up because I've played some RTS with very solid and moddable AI that I've created AI players for some buddies and I to play when we want to co-op vs AI players (it's my "position" on our "team" - I'm to find out how to mod/create AI players if possible, and then create/mod those AI players).

When we can create and mod our own AI with a robust framework that, at it's heart, is already smart and flexible - then we can talk about EA running up against the limits of game AI.

# 30 ODogg @ 03/10/10 11:47 AM

killgod - yes i was only talking about on the field play since I believe that is what EA is referring to in reference to the number of games played.

# 31 coogrfan @ 03/10/10 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CreatineKasey


	76% of Madden gamers play online. There's your answer offline franchise guys. It's not a big priority to them. I remember people claiming only 5% of Madden gamers play online and junk like that despite me arguing otherwise. Online franchise and other online functions such as game balance and solid gameplay are priorities for sure.

I believe it's possible that 76% of the people who responded to EA's survey may well be mainly online gamers, but I find it very hard to believe that the % for the Madden population as a whole is anywhere near that high.

# 32 CardsFan52 @ 03/10/10 12:22 PM

[quote=CreatineKasey;2040837887]I bet most owners of Madden never play 75 games worth of football, online or offline. Most gamers aren't like us. They don't pick 1 game and put serious hours into it. There's plenty of casual gamers and guys who bounce back and forth from new games every month or two.

Massively Multiplayer Online games have kind of set a blueprint for getting a gamer to commit to your game. Think of Modern Warfare 2 and how it "unlocks" weapons and abilities as the gamer competes. That motivates many gamers to keep going. Madden's traditional matchmaking and leaderboards lack the motivation that other games give. Those progression markers are very addicting. Online Franchise is a wonderful step in that direction. Unfortunately unless you're hardcore about creating an offseason, it falls far short for most gamers. It's not for the causal fan this season.

Madden would greatly benefit from adding in some sort of "progressing over time" online function.

Agreed, I was just thinking about this the other day, the thing is I don't know how it would work or how EA would implement it.

# 33 ODogg @ 03/10/10 12:26 PM

That's why I posted in another thread how Madden should track what teams you have used, what teams you have played against and what teams you've beaten, both online and offline. An old Madden/NCAA had this and it drove me really to play the game a lot more. Plus it was cool to be spurred on to use teams, and play against teams, that I would normally not use. They could do that for an achievement or a trophy.

# 34 cdon2k @ 03/10/10 12:36 PM

Ian had mentioned a quicker experience for Madden 10 in a previous thread. He said that games were taking too long to get through (which I agree because I am married and have other responsibilities. I gave this example:

Wife, "we have to go shopping are you playing online?"

Me, "yeah"

Wife, "well, how long is it going to be?"

Me with a grimace, "an hour!?!"

Wife, "well, can't you just quit and play when we get back?"

Me embarrassed, "no, if I quit my record will be punished..."

So Ian put a fix in for Madden 10, accelerated clock, faster presentation for online, and 5 minute quarters. Then the community outrage came and we're back to that one hour mark. PS2 Madden only took about 30 minutes to complete making it easy to get multiple games in if you had some time to spare.

So you may be asking "why does Ian care so much about this issue?". Well, here's your answer - the game takes too long for even the devs to play it! Ian noticed this last year when he could get in a 30 minute game of Fifa here and there but like me couldn't find that hour needed for a game of Madden. As a result he's always playing Fifa and not Madden. I love the sim community, but they are wrong on this one, presentation should be slim to none online. Seventeen minutes of football out of 60? Say it out loud and realize that it's crazy.

# 35 CreatineKasey @ 03/10/10 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdon2k


	Ian had mentioned a quicker experience for Madden 10 in a previous thread. He said that games were taking too long to get through (which I agree because I am married and have other responsibilities. I gave this example: Wife, "we have to go shopping are you playing online?" Me, "yeah" Wife, "well, how long is it going to be?" Me with a grimace, "an hour!?!" Wife, "well, can't you just quit and play when we get back?" Me embarrassed, "no, if I quit my record will be punished..." So Ian put a fix in for Madden 10, accelerated clock, faster presentation for online, and 5 minute quarters. Then the community outrage came and we're back to that one hour mark. PS2 Madden only took about 30 minutes to complete making it easy to get multiple games in if you had some time to spare. So you may be asking "why does Ian care so much about this issue?". Well, here's your answer - the game takes too long for even the devs to play it! Ian noticed this last year when he could get in a 30 minute game of Fifa here and there but like me couldn't find that hour needed for a game of Madden. As a result he's always playing Fifa and not Madden. I love the sim community, but they are wrong on this one, presentation should be slim to none online. Seventeen minutes of football out of 60? Say it out loud and realize that it's crazy.

It's not crazy. I remember reading about how much live football is actually seen during a given broadcast. It ended up being around 10 minutes in a 3 hour broadcast. Yes... it was less than a half hour!

Football works that way. People need time to select plays and set things up. The actual play lasts for mere seconds.

If they could pare down the non-football gameplay we could possibly experience a fair amount of plays in a half hour. I'd love to play 10 minute quarters and finish in 45ish minutes.

# 36 Bgamer90 @ 03/10/10 12:43 PM

http://www.facebook.com/EASportsMadd...s/365744508352

"Guys. Before you rush to judgment, please wait until you have full details. We are very excited about this year's version and think you will like the different options. We are definitely not dumbing the game down. In fact, it will be more authentic. Can't go into details just yet."

"The... theme for Madden 11 this year is �simpler, quicker, and deeper,�".

# 37 SageInfinite @ 03/10/10 12:46 PM

Madden's presentation already caters to button mashers and speed gamers. If it gets any worse I'll be done.

# 38 Crimsontide27 @ 03/10/10 12:54 PM

I dont know about everyone else, but the playbooks were generic enough that all I ever did was hit the "ask madden" button and call a play. That feature selects the same plays over and over and over. That may be why they have the results that they have.

If a lot of other users use the " Ask Madden" feature to select plays, then its their fault, and not the players faults that the same plays have been getting called repeatedly.

# 39 BlueNGold @ 03/10/10 12:57 PM

If they want to strip down the presentation online that's fine. If they want to add options to turn presentation off in offline, that's fine. But don't ruin what they built in Madden 10 just based off of some random stats from online games.

That IGN article made this sound a lot worse than this (hopefully) is. The article posted today on the front page here made things sound a little better. The IGN article makes it sound like they're going to strip down the playbooks and stuff like that, which they better not do. The playbooks need to be expanded, not stripped down. It would probably help too if there wasn't a lot of useless plays.

It would also help if the passing game is worked on this year so that every route is actually "throwable". I'm guessing part of the reason there is only a select number of plays being called is partly because of that.

But anyways, I'm gonna hold my breath before I rush to any judgement. We haven't even seen the game yet so who knows what the deal is.

# 40 CreatineKasey @ 03/10/10 01:03 PM

Applying adaptive AI to online games would force users to go to different plays. That's what I thought we were getting in M10.

If M11 has defenders key in on certain routes and plays, it'll force users to break the defense in different ways. That's an inherent key to real football. If you keep running a slant on a CB, he's going to jump it eventually. Forcing users to mix plays would "keep them honest". Who knows... maybe that'd open up a whole new can of worms. Imagine setting someone up with a bunch of slants then hitting a quick out. Rinse, repeat.

I don't know... grrr. Just revamp locomotion, ball trajectory, OL/DL interactions first

« Previous 123 4 5 6 7 8 Next »

More Links

Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)