Madden NFL 16 News Post

Madden NFL 16: Penalties Are Finally Going to Be a Thing

05:28 PM - June 15, 2015 by Steve_OS

Penalties have long not been a big part of the Madden NFL experience. This year, EA is hoping to change that legacy, which you can read fully fleshed out on their new blog:

Quote:


	"Our hardcore simulation fans have been demanding realistic penalties for years. The team finally made this a point of emphasis in Madden NFL 16, and penalties will play a bigger factor than ever before. In addition to several new penalties being added, we have updated all pre-existing penalties and built a system to control penalty frequency."

What This Means: Every player is going to get a penalty trait based on real-world NFL data, which will determine how likely they are to commit a penalty. Also, how you play the game will determine how many penalties are called as well. A pressing cornerback is used as an example, where your chances of seeing a defensive holding penalty are higher than if he is playing loose.

The penalty sliders also are getting a makeover, with the default setting based on NFL penalty averages over the last five seasons, which will make penalty type and frequency as authentic as possible, so EA says.

Penalties which got the updated treatment include: Encroachment, False Start, Offensive Holding, Facemask, Defensive Pass Interference, Illegal Block in the Back, Neutral Zone Infraction, Defensive Holding, Illegal Forward Pass, Illegal Touching, Delay of Game, Kick Catch Interference Running into the Kicker, Unnecessary Roughness and Roughing the Passer.

What do you think of the potentially improved penalties?

Game: Madden NFL 16Reader Score: 7/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / PS4 / Xbox 360 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 24 - View All

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Member Comments

# 141 TDKing @ 06/18/15 11:45 AM

Sounds good so far ... Till the first tuner update lol !!

# 142 Danimal @ 06/18/15 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeuceDouglas


	I could be wrong but he mentioned how there would be no penalties coming from CPU-controlled characters in H2H, MUT, or DC so I'd figure that those modes shouldn't play much of a role in any of those potential tunings just because the data is all coming from user input in terms of the penalties. Also possible that they have separate tuning for CFM, H2H, etc. since that is the case but, again, I could be way off on this, just speculating.

You're right of course, I missed that. It's just an odd statement when the sliders work. If the baseline is on league averages then leave it that way.

# 143 Josiphos @ 06/18/15 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Hooe


	Follow-up and a data dump on penalty stuff: I played a half of a six-minute quarters game on All-Madden difficulty. Before starting this game, I maxed out every penalty slider. At the end of this half of football, the two teams (Packers and Broncos) had combined for just over 400 yards of penalties. There was literally a penalty on every other play. It was excessive and insufferable. Needless to say, the penalty sliders work. lol I had opportunities to speak with Clint Oldenburg, Andrew Johnson (AJ), and Kolbe Launchbaugh (still not sure if I'm spelling his last name right, I need to check that) about penalties today, more info follows: - Penalties are NEVER triggered by CPU-controlled characters in online head-to-head, Ultimate Team, and Draft Champions (this explains why I saw so few yesterday). A user controlling a player may still trigger a penalty in these modes, however. CPU-triggered penalties do occur in online head-to-head games in Connected Franchise, however; I specifically asked about that for clarity's sake. - On the "caps" DeuceDouglas mentioned - at the default penalty level settings, the game keeps track of how many flags it has called, and at a certain point it will stop calling fouls which have occurred frequently. For example, if the game calls like ten defensive holding calls by the third quarter (assuming the cap is ten, I wasn't told a specific number), the game will no longer trigger defensive holding fouls and animations. This is a usability feature; mainstream players get easily frustrated when they get penalized for something they didn't do (understandably). Increasing a penalty slider's value above 50 will remove the caps for that foul altogether. - On how penalties are tuned - Tiburon researched real-life penalty frequencies for the baseline values for how often penalties should occur. They have the ability to adjust these values with tuner sets if their telemetry is showing too few penalties or if there is consensus user feedback requesting changes to penalty frequency. - On how penalty sliders function in Madden NFL 16 - the example I was given was with offensive holding. At the default value of 50, the holding chance is pretty low on any given play; there are about 2.5 offensive holding penalties per game in real life, per Tiburon's research, and the game is tuned to get that number on average. Increasing the offensive holding slider to 99 will effectively multiply that target average value by 10, so the chance for a holding penalty on any given play goes way up and one should expect to see around 25 holding penalties in an average Madden game at this setting. I was also told that penalty sliders do not affect any non-penalty components of gameplay. You won't see general run blocking success or failure rates change by messing with the offensive holding slider, for example. - Play style influences what penalties will be called. For example, if you play a lot of 2-Man press coverage and have undisciplined cornerbacks, you are going to see more defensive holding penalties. I did a few drives on defense as the Packers (max penalty sliders game still) where I exclusively called Nickel 2-Man with press coverage, and Dmitri Goodson was effectively tackling the slot receiver he was guarding at times and getting flagged a ton. He was not very good. - Penalties will always have an animation; there shouldn't be any situation where a penalty is called and the foul doesn't have a corresponding animation. These animations do not necessarily require contact. I saw one defensive pass interference penalty by Sam Shields where he was impeding the progress of Demaryius Thomas on a fly route; the animation was not initially triggered by contact between Shields and Thomas. - The penalty I saw the most when the penalty sliders were maxed out was Illegal Block In The Back. Saw plenty of offensive and defensive holding, roughing the passer. I did see defensive pass interference. Saw a bit of CPU players committing neutral zone infractions and offsides. Didn't see many false starts but neither my opponent nor I was doing a whole lot with the snap count. I do not recall seeing offensive pass interference. Strangely, offensive pass interference is an On/Off toggle, not a slider. Not sure if that's the final implementation. If anyone has any questions, I'll do my best to answer some, I'll be around on OS for a bit this evening.

Great info. I feel a little better about penalties now.

I hope this does not remove our ability to tune via sliders....as that's a great feature

# 144 CM Hooe @ 06/18/15 06:49 PM

Follow-up: penalty frequency DOES scale to quarter length. So you shouldn't need to reduce penalty sliders if you play longer quarters.

# 145 charter04 @ 06/18/15 07:19 PM

Great to hear the penalty sliders have no affect on gameplay.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 146 Potatoes002 @ 06/18/15 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charter04


	Great to hear the penalty sliders have no affect on gameplay. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Only as long as the gameplay sliders matter more this year. In the past penalty sliders were more effective in certain aspects of the game than the actual gameplay ones.

Not a complaint, as penalty sliders shouldn't control anything other than penalties in the first place.

# 147 charter04 @ 06/18/15 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potatoes002


	Only as long as the gameplay sliders matter more this year. In the past penalty sliders were more effective in certain aspects of the game than the actual gameplay ones. Not a complaint, as penalty sliders shouldn't control anything other than penalties in the first place.

Yes I'm am for sure hoping regular sliders are work as good as the penalty sliders seems too. Hopefully they just reworked all of that.

# 148 CM Hooe @ 06/18/15 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Potatoes002


	Only as long as the gameplay sliders matter more this year. In the past penalty sliders were more effective in certain aspects of the game than the actual gameplay ones. Not a complaint, as penalty sliders shouldn't control anything other than penalties in the first place.

Clint Oldenburg told me repeatedly that gameplay sliders only affected gameplay, penalty sliders only affect penalties, and all sliders operate the same in every mode of the game. He specifically said there is "no difference" (his words, he invited me to quote him haha) in function of gameplay sliders in Play Now and Connected Franchise (I specifically asked about that).

# 149 The JareBear @ 06/18/15 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Hooe


	Clint Oldenburg told me repeatedly that gameplay sliders only affected gameplay, penalty sliders only affect penalties, and all sliders operate the same in every mode of the game. He specifically said there is "no difference" (his words, he invited me to quote him haha) in function of gameplay sliders in Play Now and Connected Franchise (I specifically asked about that).

It's good to hear a dev officially discus sliders at all, in any capacity, so that's great

# 150 Skyboxer @ 06/18/15 09:37 PM

Really excited to play. Along with the fear of penalties finally, hoping the AI does all the new catches etc.. on own and I can have a great SP experience.

# 151 DJ @ 06/19/15 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Hooe


	Clint Oldenburg told me repeatedly that gameplay sliders only affected gameplay, penalty sliders only affect penalties, and all sliders operate the same in every mode of the game. He specifically said there is "no difference" (his words, he invited me to quote him haha) in function of gameplay sliders in Play Now and Connected Franchise (I specifically asked about that).

Good news. I'm ready to play!

# 152 JayD @ 06/19/15 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Hooe


	Clint Oldenburg told me repeatedly that gameplay sliders only affected gameplay, penalty sliders only affect penalties, and all sliders operate the same in every mode of the game. He specifically said there is "no difference" (his words, he invited me to quote him haha) in function of gameplay sliders in Play Now and Connected Franchise (I specifically asked about that).

So does this mean we will see improvements with the auto sub sliders as well? Any chance we can get confirmation on this?

# 153 aholbert32 @ 06/19/15 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayD


	So does this mean we will see improvements with the auto sub sliders as well? Any chance we can get confirmation on this?

Too late now. E3 is over. You should ry and see if you can get an answer from Clint on Twitter.

# 154 JayD @ 06/19/15 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aholbert32


	Too late now. E3 is over. You should ry and see if you can get an answer from Clint on Twitter.

I do not have a Twitter account, nor do I want one. Any chance you could drop a line to him?

# 155 awffltony77 @ 06/19/15 07:29 PM

Does anyone mention how they are going to separate the penalty sliders from having a dramatic effect on the gameplay?

# 156 jpdavis82 @ 06/19/15 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by da206gamer


	I predict ppl will complain about penalties happening too frequently that EA will patch it and make penalties like years past. Lol

If the sliders work it won't matter. I highly doubt they would fix the sliders and then break them again, which is what it would take to make them like years past. They may tune them down but I don't see them breaking them the way they used to be. Since penalties are basically off in modes like Draft Champions and MUT, I don't see it being that much of an issue.

# 157 Skyboxer @ 06/19/15 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by da206gamer


	I predict ppl will complain about penalties happening too frequently that EA will patch it and make penalties like years past. Lol

The only ones that would complain would be the online rank guys etc.. and penalties aren't on for those games I believe.
Not to mention that CM said the sldiers do work and so if need be set them to 0 for least affect.

# 158 ggsimmonds @ 06/19/15 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayD


	I do not have a Twitter account, nor do I want one. Any chance you could drop a line to him?

I created a twitter basically for the sole purpose of asking Clint questions.
It is well worth it I think.

# 159 azdawgpound @ 06/20/15 09:20 AM

Not sure if this was asked? But did they add any penalties to the list that's in Madden?

Because I know I have seen couple called that wasent listed like illegal touching and late hit out of bounds.

Was just curious if they added any or tweaked ones that aren't listed.

# 160 roadman @ 06/20/15 09:39 AM

The list of new and updated penalties includes:

Encroachment, False Start, Offensive Holding, Facemask, Defensive Pass Interference, Illegal Block in the Back, Neutral Zone Infraction, Defensive Holding, Illegal Forward Pass, Illegal Touching, Delay of Game, Kick Catch Interference Running into the Kicker, Unnecessary Roughness and Roughing the Passer.

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