Madden NFL 11 News Post

Why Limit Gamers?

04:16 PM - November 22, 2010 by RaychelSnr

Let me state before I delve into the rest of this article that I believe Madden is a good but not great game. I'm by no means what most people would call a "bonafide full time Madden basher" and I don't feel the need to excessively bash EA Sports at every turn when it comes to their premiere football game.

In fact, Ian Cummings is one of the best game designers out there in our community and I kind of feel the need to apologize in advance -- mainly because the Madden team is far from the only group who limit gamers experience.

But yet, they're today's example. A line in today's post from Ian Cummings caught my eye and I must vent and ask some very important questions to anyone working on sports gaming development these days:

Quote:


	"There are countless "cheesing" things that the user can do like dropping your player ratings right before the off-season, signing him to the cheapest deal possible, and then setting him back"

To that I must counter with: Who cares if Joe America cheeses in their single player franchise? Isn't that what video games are for? Creating an alternate reality you enjoy?

And furthermore, who cares if Joe America and his friends were to do that with their online franchise? What gives a game designer the right to limit the experience gamers want to have with your creation? Why are rules arbitrarily created to force players to play how you feel they should? You can easily customize the rulesets to allow for this type of tinkering by the commissioner in online franchises.

But really I have to ask again, who cares if someone wants to cheese in their franchise? Why hide anything at all when it comes to ratings? Why not allow users to allow certain ratings to be displayed or not, making franchise mode as easy or as hard as they feel it should be? If someone wants to cheat, LET THEM CHEAT!

The customer is always right, right?

I've said it countless times over the years, and I'll always continue to say it to every game designer who reads this site: if you purposefully limit the experience of the gamer, then you are limiting their enjoyment of your product and lessening the chance they'll return next time.

The Madden team is the only team who does this. Every team and every company is guilty to a certain extent. I think one of the main reasons is that there is a hidden fear that users won't buy the next game if you can customize the current game to perfection.

But that sounds like a reason to make material improvements year over year to me.

I'll continue this song and dance forever. Quit limiting gamers for no reason, give them the keys. You might be shocked what a dedicated community can do for a game.

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Member Comments

# 21 KingV2k3 @ 11/22/10 10:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MMChrisS


	Ah man sm27's Madden Manifesto! That made madden 2005 the best playing NFL franchise experience ever! Good memories!

Who would have thought at that time that a five year old title on a technologically inferior platform would still be The G.O.A.T. (still) to this day???

I have heard that the devs at the time were aware (and impressed) with that document, I hope that the current team is at least interested enough to give it a look...

It illustrates, not only your point of total customization, but also serves as a testament to the best case "cooperative effort" by a bunch of dedicated offline SIM franchise players on this forum...

# 22 Palo20 @ 11/22/10 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottyo60


	Someone mentioned NBA 10 as far as customization settings... I'd like to bring up a live season. I know some people wouldn't want to wait from week to week to play their games, but i feel i might be more immersed in this at some point. Maybe as a alternate way of playing a dynasty or a way to start a dynasty.

I'm all for this since I like to play with multiple teams and go along with the season. I would love this option.

# 23 JAYMO76 @ 11/22/10 10:46 PM

I totally agree with your write-up. 2K sports is an excellent example for user customization. We should have 100% access to global customization. Ihate seeing screwed up cpu depth charts. If the Colts draft a QB, let me go in and re-set Manning to be the starter.

# 24 rooney8 @ 11/23/10 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dewie12


	It is all about customization. It is a shame Peter Moore axed all the PC versions. So now the small percentage of gamers who want this are left to the consoles, which have all kinds of issues. I agree that gamers shouldn't be limited. But I understand the rules the developers are working with Sony and Microsoft having say in the product. That is why I continue to lament EA's neglect of the PC.

I thought pirates were to blame for that.

Nothing should be done to stop cheesing offline and ideally all the stuff done to stop it online should not apply offline.

# 25 carnalnirvana @ 11/23/10 09:59 AM

gamers creativity in a 1 yr cycle would be bad for business if the next years product is not REALLLLLY different and better.

look at fifa(i wont go into details but i could) its not about the offline gamer, its about the online community and quick games played thousands of times per day........

i call it the COD halo syndrome, everyone wants 200,000 players online....

i remember reading in gamepro and EGM, dev's would envy the PC community creativity and craved next gen where they could give us the tools to edit and share, i remember xbox live being touted as the agent of player creativity trading hub similar PC gaming....them came halo 3 and cod 4, then fifa joined now the craze is about pick and play ability....

look at the patches, 3 offline components vs 10 things for online stability, its clear where gaming has gone, US offline gamers are now the dinosaurs of gaming.

i never play online because i dont believe sport games fit well with online lag, and people's mentality.....

there is a common trend in my games, sport games that play well offline are garbage online ex. nba 2k, PES online they are bad.. compared to the decent online of fifa, live and madden which are uhhhh offline. i have not played the show or nhl games cant comment on that........

if you crave online success OFFLINE will suffer

# 26 Galarius @ 11/23/10 11:21 AM

I don't consider keeping a game more legit 'limiting'.........I am glad Ian Cummings is mindful of these things, shows a heck of a lot of thought

# 27 jestep123 @ 11/23/10 11:32 AM

Arent there rules set forth by the NFLPA on this type of thing? I honestly dont know. Even if not, while the premise of this article is good, I think it is flawed.

Someone mentioned earlier in the thread about devs protecting their work. That person was right IMO. To me, I wouldnt allow full blown customization simply to protect the integrety of the game.

I think Ian Cummings used an interesting word in "cheesing". That isnt an industry term I am sure but gamers have come to accept "cheesing" and associate it with "cheating" or more concerning to devs "cheap". Nobody wants their product to be branded that way and the fact is that if you allow the consumer to do as they please, that is what you are going to be looking at.

As mentioned, 2k games have done a great job of allowing customers to customize thier experience and IMO that does cheapen the game because it potentially allows for workarounds that would kill off the intergrity of the AI.

Most game companies limit gamers and I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Think of it this way, an author writes a book and they copyright it because they dont want you taking it, changing a plotline here or there and altering the outcome. I would like someone to explain how this is different.

# 28 Cletus @ 11/23/10 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jestep123


	Arent there rules set forth by the NFLPA on this type of thing? I honestly dont know. Even if not, while the premise of this article is good, I think it is flawed. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread about devs protecting their work. That person was right IMO. To me, I wouldnt allow full blown customization simply to protect the integrety of the game. I think Ian Cummings used an interesting word in "cheesing". That isnt an industry term I am sure but gamers have come to accept "cheesing" and associate it with "cheating" or more concerning to devs "cheap". Nobody wants their product to be branded that way and the fact is that if you allow the consumer to do as they please, that is what you are going to be looking at. As mentioned, 2k games have done a great job of allowing customers to customize thier experience and IMO that does cheapen the game because it potentially allows for workarounds that would kill off the intergrity of the AI. Most game companies limit gamers and I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Think of it this way, an author writes a book and they copyright it because they dont want you taking it, changing a plotline here or there and altering the outcome. I would like someone to explain how this is different.

the difference is video games are more tangable. If you buy a book, you are free to write on the pages and thus you can change the plot. IT's your book, if you want to write on it and make the protagonist a sociopath you can. In video games, a lot of times if you want to play it your way you can't even though you paid 60 bucks for it. Online I see why you can't make things cheesy, but offline, you're playing against the cpu and a lot of times the cpu does things you can't, especially on higher difficulty.

For example, on NHL 11 the cpu passing is super accurate even when the slider is set to zero. If they didn't include a pass acurracy slider, then there's nothing you could do to combat that. That would be just as cheesy as setting it to rookie and jacking all the sliders in favor of human.

# 29 moneal2001 @ 11/23/10 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jestep123


	Arent there rules set forth by the NFLPA on this type of thing? I honestly dont know. Even if not, while the premise of this article is good, I think it is flawed. Someone mentioned earlier in the thread about devs protecting their work. That person was right IMO. To me, I wouldnt allow full blown customization simply to protect the integrety of the game. I think Ian Cummings used an interesting word in "cheesing". That isnt an industry term I am sure but gamers have come to accept "cheesing" and associate it with "cheating" or more concerning to devs "cheap". Nobody wants their product to be branded that way and the fact is that if you allow the consumer to do as they please, that is what you are going to be looking at. As mentioned, 2k games have done a great job of allowing customers to customize thier experience and IMO that does cheapen the game because it potentially allows for workarounds that would kill off the intergrity of the AI. Most game companies limit gamers and I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Think of it this way, an author writes a book and they copyright it because they dont want you taking it, changing a plotline here or there and altering the outcome. I would like someone to explain how this is different.

The flaw there is that most people that do customization do not "cheese" the game. They try to make the game more sim like. If you look on the 2k boards or online downloads, you see realistic slider sets or rosters that produce more realistic results.

The devs do an amazing job with the time that they have but, it is a very limited time. There are always flaws that get missed or overlooked due to time constraints. Allowing the players to correct those with sliders or roster editing or what have you, seems like the best fix for the problems that we have.

The 2k basketball games offer a huge amount of customization and connectivity to that customization. You say that it produces workarounds that kill the integrity of the AI, but most will say the opposite is happening. It allows the player to get past the flaws in the AI. Like trade and draft AI, two very hard things to program.

In madden you can trade draft picks for Peyton Manning. Do you ever think the colts would do that in real life. No, but it is in the game. Or how about running the same play all game long because the defense never adjusts to it. Those are the real representations of "cheese". How is that not killing the integrity of the AI, its the AI allows cheese like that.

Also most cheesers are lazy finding the easiest way to produce there wants or cheat to the game. Customization takes far too long to get through for most cheesers to go through to produce the effect they want.

Allowing greater customization has never hurt any game that I have ever played. If you can show me one that it has hurt or destroyed please provide it.

# 30 jestep123 @ 11/23/10 02:25 PM

Fair enough and maybe a book was a bad example based on that kind of reach but the fact is that there is all kinds of copyrighted material out there that you can not alter (legally). If what we are talking about is editing uniforms or creating a stadium or team names I am fine with that. That does not make the game cheap. As a matter of fact, those things are features and they add value. Sliders are the same way, they allow you to customize how the game plays to your playing style.

Editing attibutes is a whole different beast and would make the game cheaper perception wise if nothing else.

My general feeling is that OSer's sometimes need to remember that we arent the only gamers in the world.

Imagine a world where the majority gets what they want and we just let the community take over. EA says fine, forget attributes we are setting everyone to zero and you figure it out. The problem there is twofold, your still putting attributes in the hands of a select few (which I guess is better than one person) but I am pretty sure that person has statistics and research to back up what they put into the game. The depth of those stats and that research would not be something the community would want to engage in every year. The effort required would lead to a minnamal change in result anyway. Besides that could you imagine the chaos involved in trying to get folks to agree on ratings?

Second, if folks got on the boards and were constantly changing ratings around, the perception would be that EA has no real idea of what is doing. You would still have people complaining that EA didnt do right by the ratings and its ashame that the community had to step up and take care of it.

When you give people the ability to basically rewrite the game, you take away from its artistic integrety and its value. Perception wise, by giving consumers this much control you have taken a $60.00 game and turned it into a $30 game.

APF 2k8 and CH2k8 are good examples of this to me. These games have stood up for a long time because of the customization involved. We all still play them and that is great for us since we dont have to spend money on a new game.

My question is, how do the dev companies benefit by giving customers all this customization?

# 31 GlennN @ 11/23/10 02:50 PM

Excellent article, Chris. I agree completely. I'm at the point where I could accept the inability to edit players (though idealy I would like that ability), if they would remove the artificial limitations in other areas. Stop saying I cannot have more than 10 draft picks. If I want to rebuild my team, why should I be limited? Stop saying I do not have a minimum number of tackles, or safeties, or whatever. Let me build my roster, my way. If ratings truly mean something, then I should be using players realistically. Maybe in my scheme (like in many NFL teams), I don't use a full back. Maybe I like CBs playing S. Maybe, like the Eagles, I draft mostly tackes and then use them as guards. Those are the kind of limits that bother me most, even above the inability to edit players.

# 32 moneal2001 @ 11/23/10 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jestep123


	My question is, how do the dev companies benefit by giving customers all this customization?

Improve on the game engine. If you wanted to play NBA 2k10 with updated rosters and new draft classes you could. The reason to buy 2k11 comes from the improvements to the game play and AI not the updated rosters.

Yea if devs just popped out a new game with updated rosters and now game or ai improvements. They would not get sales, but as long as they were working on improving the gameplay and AI they would still sell games.

# 33 stlstudios189 @ 11/24/10 07:19 AM

I understand some limitations to keep online cheeting etc.. but in an EA game I have to play a full 82 game NBA and NHL season why can't I have a 29 or 58 game season?

# 34 rooney8 @ 11/24/10 07:51 AM

A good example of not limiting gamers is in 2K11 with the option to overide trades. I would never touch it, I won't even do monthly training or send my players to off-season camps because I feel it's cheese but I am sure some love being able to overide trades and that's great for them.

# 35 Exonerated @ 11/24/10 09:49 AM

In my dynasty, I get two free agents from another club to join my superstar.

I force them to sign with me for less than max.

And then, I proceed to start the season 8-6.

# 36 michapop9 @ 11/24/10 10:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MMChrisS


	The first reason wasn't listed as making the game unstable -- just it was 'cheesing'. That's not cool. The other problems are there because the design of the game has determined that there are limits which you cannot cross. It's a design flaw, not a software limitation.

You cant argue with this, MLB the show and MLB 2k allow you to do this as well as other games without crashing problems, The people that even try to argue that these abilities/options shouldnt be in there have no bearing whatsoever BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT BE FORCED TO USE IT!!!! But they would prevent others from doing so if they had it there way.

# 37 rooney8 @ 11/24/10 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michapop9


	You cant argue with this, MLB the show and MLB 2k allow you to do this as well as other games without crashing problems, The people that even try to argue that these abilities/options shouldnt be in there have no bearing whatsoever BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT BE FORCED TO USE IT!!!! But they would prevent others from doing so if they had it there way.

I am just worried that instead of fixing many things like progression/regression we will be given the ability to edit thousands of players so we can just do that ourselves. It just seems it would be an easy way to not fix things that need to be fixed.

# 38 roadman @ 11/24/10 10:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michapop9


	You cant argue with this, MLB the show and MLB 2k allow you to do this as well as other games without crashing problems, The people that even try to argue that these abilities/options shouldnt be in there have no bearing whatsoever BECAUSE THEY WOULD NOT BE FORCED TO USE IT!!!! But they would prevent others from doing so if they had it there way.

Eh, no need to shoot others opinions down.

I don't use editing at all in sports games on NG. I did on the PC years ago with HH Baseball and on Madden on the PC. I just don't have the time anymore.

That doesn't mean others can't enjoy it by allowing more editing. I'm all for more options, but not at the expense of hearing others opinions, for or against.

# 39 GlennN @ 11/24/10 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exonerated


	In my dynasty, I get two free agents from another club to join my superstar. I force them to sign with me for less than max. And then, I proceed to start the season 8-6.

That's great! But, of course that could never happen in real life . . . well, north of the Mason Dixon line anyway.

# 40 michapop9 @ 11/24/10 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rooney8


	I am just worried that instead of fixing many things like progression/regression we will be given the ability to edit thousands of players so we can just do that ourselves. It just seems it would be an easy way to not fix things that need to be fixed.

Well if you look back how often has this line of thought been used and things still dont get fixed?? As if putting something good in the game that gives people opportunities to customize things how they want will take away something else that needs to be fixed, for the past few years things have been getting put in the game that arent neccessarily good and others have been getting completely ignored, if this train of thought is used than we might as well not put anything into the game, what needs to be "fixed" is truly getting smaller while what needs to be "added" is still a pretty large list.

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