Madden 12 News Post

Madden NFL 12 Super Bowl Halftime Blog: Tuner Sets and Surprise Onside Kicks

08:00 PM - February 6, 2011 by Steve_OS

The Madden NFL 12 Super Bowl Halftime blog is online. Tuner sets and surprise onside kicks are in.

Quote:


	""Tuner Sets", introduced in the NHL series and brought into NCAA Football last year, are hugely important to the development of sports games in that they allow us to tune and tweak many existing parts of game code without the major delay that comes from a full title update requiring 1st party console manufacturer approvals. A quick addition to my hacked surprise onside kick code made this feature easily tunable post-ship, and thus much safer against any exploits that may crop up. This isn't the only thing in the tuner sets obviously...we are in the process of moving as many items into these as possible, from gameplay tuning to franchise data to even presentation aspects. We are excited to the possibilities this will open up to our fans in being able to provide live feedback and having us act on it in near real-time. The days of shipping a disc in a box and forgetting about it are long gone, and we want to be at the forefront of blazing new trails in reacting to our audience and improving the game quickly."

Read the entire blog right here, along with a short video showing off the new surprise onside kick, in action.

UPDATE: The podcast is now on iTunes, for those that couldn't listen to it, via the blog.

EDIT: Per Ian Cummings

Quote:


	"RE: surprise onside, you pick a normal kickoff, then hit the B (or Circle) button as the last press on the meter. Your opponent has no clue!"

UPDATE #2: Via Ian

Quote:


	"Since so many people have asked...surprise onside as of today is only allowed 2x per team per game. That value is also in the tuner set."

Game: Madden NFL 12Reader Score: 6.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 44 - View All

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Member Comments

# 201 CM Hooe @ 02/09/11 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjcheezhead


	I believe you are correct, but given how bare the mode was, I think this is a cop out. One or two of the the features deemed most important like trade logic or salary contracts could have been added to see if it would increase usage instead of ignoring it completely for 2 years. Superstar mode in Madden also doesn't get used very much. However My Player mode in NBA2k11 is praised all the time. That suggests that maybe if madden had a better superstar mode then it currently does, people would use it more. Just my opinion.

You have a valid argument, IMO. It's a chicken-and-egg thing; would people use online franchise mode more if these features were there in the first place? Likely. Putting them in post-release without any sort of advertising buildup might not be a success, however, as communicating the addition to fans who don't frequent communities like OS might be a significant logistical problem.

Could also be seen (particularly with regard to Superstar mode, and this is pure speculation) as a call to scrap what's there and go back to the drawing board altogether.

# 202 BlueNGold @ 02/09/11 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fhhs63


	I like OF as much as anyone, but still, the majority of players play OFFline franchise the most, including me. I say, scrap MUT to make disk space for huge improvements to offline franchise, NOT online!

Good luck with that happening.

Why would EA remove a feature, which by the way is more time consuming than adding a new feature, that is profitable for them?

# 203 kjcheezhead @ 02/09/11 05:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CHooe


	You have a valid argument, IMO. It's a chicken-and-egg thing; would people use online franchise mode more if these features were there in the first place? Likely. Putting them in post-release without any sort of advertising buildup might not be a success, however, as communicating the addition to fans who don't frequent communities like OS might be a significant logistical problem. Could also be seen (particularly with regard to Superstar mode, and this is pure speculation) as a call to scrap what's there and go back to the drawing board altogether.

It could easily have been put in a little news release that pops up when a player went to the online section of the game so again this sounds like a cop out to me.

As far as scrapping whats there and starting over with a completely new superstar mode, I think it's possible, they did scrap a terrible online league system from madden 09 before building the online franchise in the game now. I just have my doubts because things like the halftime highlights and the current online franchise suggest to me that this team likes to cut corners instead of including the "little things" that could make the game great.

# 204 mirrored32 @ 02/09/11 05:20 PM

i could care less about surprise onside kicks. gimicky. i think better resources and time could be spent on other things. franchise and history.

# 205 BlueNGold @ 02/09/11 05:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [email protected]


	i could care less about surprise onside kicks. gimicky. i think better resources and time could be spent on other things. franchise and history.

How the hell is it gimmicky? It's a part of the game.

You don't want to see what you see in real life in the game?

# 206 roadman @ 02/09/11 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [email protected]


	i could care less about surprise onside kicks. gimicky. i think better resources and time could be spent on other things. franchise and history.

Welcome, I see you are new here.

For the past 3 yrs, we have been delivered small amounts of information on the new game starting at SB time-through Draft Day.

The bigger ticket items are from Draft Day till the July area. If your looking for the bigger ticket items, you might have to wait until April and beyond.

# 207 at23steelers @ 02/09/11 05:40 PM

Jon Robinson: Is there a limit to how many times players will be able to attempt this throughout the game?

Ian Cummings: Yeah, this is something that has brought up a lot of discussion, and as of today we're limiting this to one per team per game. At the beginning of the week I had it at two per team per game, but there was an overwhelming response that we shouldn't do that. The thing is, this is in the tuner set values, so we can push this pretty easily if we want to go up or down. I don't want people to think that this is an exploit and that we're capping it because it's an exploit, but the idea is that once a team does one, there's no way that the other team would fall for it again. They're going to be setup for it and they're going to prepare for it. So I don't want to make this unlimited where some guy spends six days straight in practice mode and finds a way to recover every time and ruins online play for everyone. That's why we're limiting this to just one or two or maybe three. We'll see how it works out closer to ship.

# 208 Bellsprout @ 02/09/11 05:46 PM

Can't it just be an option? Surprise Onside Kick Cap: On/Off or something? Maybe not even On/Off, maybe just 1-Unlimited or something.

# 209 jeremym480 @ 02/09/11 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueNGold


	How the hell is it gimmicky? It's a part of the game. You don't want to see what you see in real life in the game?

I'm 100% convinced that some folks around here have no idea what a gimmick is.

# 210 BlueNGold @ 02/09/11 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremym480


	I'm 100% convinced that some folks around here have no idea what a gimmick is.

Yep. A lot of guys just want to throw out the go-to words like "broken", "engine", "gimmick", etc.

Regarding Dayman's post, it's too bad they just don't bring back that Fair Play option from the PS2 days. I think it only allowed you to do things like onside kicks in certain situations.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, to the guys that keep saying "If they made the AI smart enough to expect the surprise onside after one attempt, it wouldn't be an issue", yes it would. Eventually there's going to be someone that will find some way to exploit it, like those guys who make Youtube videos and go out of their way to ruin the game just to prove a point (putting punters/kickers on the o-line for example), no matter how hard EA works on making it exploit-proof.

# 211 droopizzle34 @ 02/09/11 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by [email protected]


	i could care less about surprise onside kicks. gimicky. i think better resources and time could be spent on other things.

I agree.nothing to get excited about. But the tuner thing is nice,I will admit.But the onside kick thing will be exploited unless EA limits it. Honestly the only thing that could get me excited about Madden 12 is additions and innovations to online/offline franchise.

# 212 Senator Palmer @ 02/09/11 05:58 PM

Jon Robinson: Is there a limit to how many times players will be able to attempt this throughout the game?

Quote:


	I don't want people to think that this is an exploit and that we're capping it because it's an exploit, but the idea is that once a team does one, there's no way that the other team would fall for it again. They're going to be setup for it and they're going to prepare for it. So I don't want to make this unlimited where some guy spends six days straight in practice mode and finds a way to recover every time and ruins online play for everyone. That's why we're limiting this to just one or two or maybe three. We'll see how it works out closer to ship.

Okay, this quote doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

I get not wanting to make it an exploit, but to say that there's going to be a setup and there's no way a team is going to fall for it twice, then why put a cap on it?

I would hope with the addition of surprise onside then a counter would be implemented, similar to how you have "safe" on punt returns. This addition is all the more reason for more comprehensive special teams play.

# 213 TexasBorn1 @ 02/09/11 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueNGold


	How the hell is it gimmicky? It's a part of the game. You don't want to see what you see in real life in the game?

We rarely see surprise onside kicks. Its understandable why someone wouldn't care if its in the game or not. Some are more concerned with the basic fundamentals of every snap that have been neglected for years.

# 214 BlueNGold @ 02/09/11 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TexasBorn1


	We rarely see surprise onside kicks. Its understandable why someone wouldn't care if its in the game or not. Some are more concerned with the basic fundamentals of every snap that have been neglected for years.

We rarely see fake field goals. Should we get rid of those? How about safeties? Those are rare as well.

Besides, whether or not he doesn't care if it's in the game or not wasn't the point. He said it's gimmicky, which I fail to see the logic in.

And it's only February. Do you really expect something like WR/DB interaction to be talked about right now?

# 215 TexasBorn1 @ 02/09/11 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueNGold


	We rarely see fake field goals. Should we get rid of those? How about safeties? Those are rare as well. Besides, whether or not he doesn't care if it's in the game or not wasn't the point. He said it's gimmicky, which I fail to see the logic in. And it's only February. Do you really expect something like WR/DB interaction to be talked about right now?

Things like surprise onside kicks are just fluff without fundamentals. That is why he said it. A safety is a part of the rule book so, I don't see why you even used that as an example.

People are aware of how the Madden team releases information, but that is not going to change their reaction to it. "Meh" news is "meh" news whether it comes in Feb. or April. This is not what some fans want to see given the recent history of the series.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say on it. Shouldn't carry on about this...just understand that you will see posts like that from time to time until release. This isn't anything new from the Community

# 216 at23steelers @ 02/09/11 09:09 PM

I am sorry, but this is a brilliant move by EA sports. It's the first feature of M12, so you know it's not some huge back of the box thing, and there is currently 27 pages all talking about it. There is so much discussion just from this thread, which was the goal for Tiburon.

# 217 RedZoneD25 @ 02/09/11 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by at23steelers


	I am sorry, but this is a brilliant move by EA sports. It's the first feature of M12, so you know it's not some huge back of the box thing, and there is currently 27 pages all talking about it. There is so much discussion just from this thread, which was the goal for Tiburon.

Exactly. This was announced to generate discussion, hype, hate, whatever it gets because it puts Madden 12 in motion.

# 218 sportyguyfl31 @ 02/10/11 08:52 AM

There's always going to be a faction who will call anything new added as gimmicky.

The YouTube Apostles and their Acolytes preaching the "double hit tackles" and "real time physics" gospel, for the next 6 months and wondering why All Madden Difficulty cant produce realistic gameplay.

It's the same cycle every year.

too early to tell anything.

I was skeptical as to how Madden 11 would be, and I ended up having a immense amount of fun.

'11 was fun, look forward to having fun in '12 as well.

# 219 boom.h @ 02/10/11 04:56 PM

This is nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if it was touted as a "feature," though.

# 220 goodygoody @ 02/10/11 05:08 PM

I'm a little concerned about the idea of having only 1 SOK per game. Dont get me wrong, I understand that Madden is trying to avoid an exploit by any means necessary, but one per game takes away the "S" in SOK. Think about it. You're playing madden and the other team does a SOK to start the game (it happens). From then on out, you know that there won't be anymore SOK's for the rest of the game. Is that what we want? Why not have 3 SOKs per game and have the chances of them being successful decrease each time?? For example:

1st SOK - 45% Success Rate

2nd SOK - 20% Success Rate

3rd SOK - 5% Success Rate

This would be a more realistic representation of the game because teams are much more prepared for an SOK after its already been attempted. Also, with the success rate decreasing each time, there would be less chance of an exploit because it would likely come back to bite whoever attempts to do so.

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