Madden 12 News Post

Where Football Games Should be in 2011

02:36 PM - December 12, 2011 by RaychelSnr

Over the years, the Madden franchise has remained a staple not only amongst sports gamers, but also in American sports culture. Despite being held back year after year by nagging gameplay issues, Madden has continued to succeed in large part due to exclusiveness. However, that same exclusiveness is a big reason why football gaming as a whole has yet to reach the heights of other major sports games.

I�m not interested in debating which football games would be superior in an open NFL-gaming market, but I find myself dreaming of a gaming landscape where competition exists and thus drove innovation in all football games.

Here are four things that I am almost certain would exist in this alternate universe of games on the gridiron if the exclusivity of Madden were to vanish.

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# 21 RogueHominid @ 12/14/11 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obnoxious


	Franchise Mode has been pretty much the same since 07-08 other than minor additions. We need something new and creative. Physics is a MUST for Madden 13. That's all I really ask for.

IDK man. I mean, DPP and player roles are huge this year. Players on hot and cold streaks are really obvious, and I've seen the roles come into effect myself and it's been awesome. Santonio Holmes turned into Super Bowl MVP man vs. the Jets in my Raiders franchise, nabbing two spectacular scoring catches in the 4th to bring the game within reach.

The coaching schemes and positional priorities are also huge.

Were these things all in '07 and '08?

As for physics, everyone wants it but there are too many ideas about how it should work. Weight and momentum matter, but some folks say that if a 250 LB player hits a 190 LB player X outcome should always happen, or should happen at a highly favorable rate for the heavier player.

I don't disagree about height, weight, and speed as relevant factors, but I think it's easy to be too reductive about the possibilities and outcomes of physics based stuff.

I'm happy with appropriate animations. The way I have it set up now, Hillis WILL truck you if you're a DB. He WILL make your life hard if you're a smallish LB. McCoy WILL juke you out of your socks in the open field, and he will make you miss in the hole.

I'm good with all that stuff because it's believable from an animation standpoint.

I'd just like to see them continue to tune what they have. I'd like coaching strategies to work for each team rather than feeding off the user team's; I'd like a fix to the weird UFDA stuff, and perhaps enhance the defensive AI, which can still over blitz on late downs.

# 22 LambertandHam @ 12/14/11 09:54 AM

I'll leave the nuts and bolts to other posters as they have a better handle on the game, but presentation, especially audio wise, needs to be looked at. Dynamic audio, a halftime or weekly highlight show(2K games on the PS2 had this), making the draft something other than text, and other improvements.

My dream would be to get the ball back on a punt, see my offense running on the field, and then hear Gus go "while the offense takes the field, let's go to the studio and see what's happening with Eli Manning".

EA has made steps forward with Madden '12's presentation, but things still feel "flat" at times.

# 23 Cardot @ 12/15/11 12:56 PM

My biggest issue with the current crop of games is that not all plays have an accurate success/fail rate. As I scroll through the playbook, there are just too many plays (or pass routes) that are "money".....or at least too successful for me to feel good about. And ofcourse there are plays that are just doomed to fail. I try to run them every now and them to be realistic and add some variety, but never in crunch time.

With practice, I suppose you can get some success from the crappy plays, but that doesn't help the CPU. In NCAA, playing a team like Oregon should be tough. But since they run a spread/option style offense which is ineffective in EA's game, they are fairly inept.

# 24 mattsb84 @ 12/15/11 02:21 PM

A lot of overly complicated ideas here, but a few i agree with.

A true physics engine would eliminate the need for a team to work on tackling animations or tackling as whole as well as line/player interaction. It would be difficult to get right though.

Passing needs an overhaul and I agree with bringing the vision cone back. I thought that was incredibly well done, but needed more time to develop into a real feature. Using the cone with the right analog in conjunction with having the pass button be pressure sensitive would simplify things on the users end, but should be optional. Tap for a lofted pass, hold for a hard pass and maybe have something in the middle(something like that). The cone should be used to aim where you want the pass to go and should be based on some sort of rating the QB has. In previous versions of Madden it was tied to AWR. A lower AWR means a smaller cone in which to work. I think this could use refining, but i think it makes sense and isn't overly complicated for most users.

I still haven't come across a franchise mode that is a good baseline. I find that AI logic needs help with roster management/drafts/FAs etc. It's always been poor. UFAs/Roster cuts are a step in the right direction for Madden, but again, needs adjusting. A Stadium builder would be a nice touch a long with many many many other little things each team does. Uniform modifications, retiring numbers/players, HOF process...concession/league finances which would then tie into HOW the salary cap is adjusted yearly, as in real life. Giving the user the ability to make league changes ala a CBA. Rule changes during the off-season. Most of these ideas would have to be based off of a per-determined list which could be populated from previous rule changes/CBA changes. I know i have other things I'm forgetting here.

Penalties/challenges - Multiple penalties during one play and having all penalties. Has any football game done this yet? Also penalties not really functioning properly. Offsides/False starts should be a kind of dice roll depending on the awareness of your OL/DL. Maybe a discipline stat to go along with that. This could be applied to really any player. I think i could flesh my idea out a bit more, but it would be long. A good challenge system with a concise list of items to challenge on every play, not just close plays, but every play. If I want to challenge something on an XP, I should be able to.

Presentation?graphics? Meh..I've never really cared about this. I skip most of the presentation stuff in games after seeing it once. Graphics aren't that big of a deal to me either, I could live with last gen graphics honestly. IMO this is stuff you do when everything else is set or mostly set and just needs adjusting.

Commentary/Crowds - If I recall correctly, Madden hated doing commentary every year to the point that he stopped doing it. I really enjoy what MLB2k/NHL/Fifa have done with theres, so anything along those lines would be great. Crowds reacting to game situations would also be good.

I think most of this is certainly doable at this time, and I think if Madden did bi-yearly releases, most of this stuff could have been implemented properly, but I know i know, they aren't allowed to do that with the licensing agreement.

# 25 WildFan22 @ 12/15/11 03:24 PM

1. Realistic presentation with broadcasters and halftime shows that include highlights and breakdowns. (This should have happened a long time ago!)

2. A franchise mode with emotion that captures the news stories that make the NFL what it is. The NFL is half game and half drama. The interesting stories that developed are missing in Madden. You have to pretend that someone cares that you are having a QB controversy, dealing with retirements, injuries, discipline issues ect.

Imagine Tebow doing what he is doing in your franchise. Nothing would be said or written. Favre would've just retired instead of messing up your drafts and free agency by retiring and then coming back ect. These major things don't exist in Madden.

3. Real time physics I didn't think they would be perfect by now but I thought they would be much further along than they are now.

4. Better presentation of the highlights you choose to save. NCAA displayed these plays on a loop behind the main menu. That was an amazing feature! Why would they bury our coolest moments in the menus? Screenshots and replays should be displayed like they were in NCAA but with even more options.

5. Fun and engaging draft presentation. Right now it's just a series of menus and a clock.

# 26 Cardot @ 12/15/11 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WildFan22


	4. Better presentation of the highlights you choose to save. NCAA displayed these plays on a loop behind the main menu. That was an amazing feature! Why would they bury our coolest moments in the menus? Screenshots and replays should be displayed like they were in NCAA but with even more options. [/font]

Yes, I also thought that was an awesome feature. But they took it out of the main menu with '09 or '10.....not sure why? Perhaps something to do with memory??? But yes, real cool to see the replays in the background. And it makes sense....I imagine that most of us have a ton of replays of different sports games stored away on the hard drive that we look at once in a blue moon.

# 27 BezO @ 12/16/11 10:22 AM

Nice write up. A few thoughts on your suggestions:

Signature Moves: Yes! Aside from what I will mention later, this is an addition that I expected to see and would add a lot to the game. EA relies too much on graphics for likeness in my opinion. From the views most of us play from, animations would do so much more for player likeness.

Refined Passing Mechanics: Ehh. I'm OK with the foundation of what's there. I just feel it needs lots of work. I think a pressure sensative button and lead mechanism should be enough to get all the throws; bullets, lobs, back shoulder fades, protecting WRs, ect. But the pressure sensativity nor the lead mechanism work like I feel they should.

More Intuitive Ratings: Yes! And along with signature moves, I think ratings should have animations tied to them. IMO, limited animations are the root of ratings issues.

The Return Game: Ehhh. Personally, I wouldn't want to play from a first person perspective at any point in the game. Again, I think limited animations are the root of special teams problems. Where are the double teams on the gunners? Improved player interaction in general would make the return game much more realistic and exciting. We also need more of the formations & plays that we see from NFL teams.

But I agree that these are all things that should have been in games by now, but...

-------------------------------

My short list of expections for today's football games:

Run defense should be based on gap & contain assignments. Not sure what EA is using, but it's certainly not based on gap principles. I can't imagine what NFL defenses would look like without run fits except to say it would look like Madden.

Animations are my biggest issue though, because I feel like they affect all other apsects of the game. Madden falls short of my expections the most regarding player interaction; more specifically, engaged player mobility. Until engaged defenders are allowed to flow parallel to the engagement/block, the spacing & timing will never look like the NFL. The lack of engaged player mobility doesn't allow for several essential elements; realistic persuit on outside run plays, realistic man coverage, realistic pass rushing, especially speed/edge rushing and realistic blocking on punt/kick returns. These aspects of the game still look like Tecmo to me.

Player interaction has always been EA's achilles heal. They had a problem implementing gang tackling years ago when another game had a working version of it. And after replacing Pro Tak with the current system, EA is back to sub par gang tackling.

It's hard to talk about AI expectations because I assume they can't have players think like football players because they don't move & interact like football players. I believe developers will be held back from truly advancing football until these animation limitations are overcome. How do you get a DB to think & react like a DB if he can't move & enteract with WRs like one?

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