Free Form Passing - my conclusion: - Dagan's Blog

Dagan's Blog

Free Form Passing - my conclusion:

Posted on September 24, 2022 at 07:30 AM.

For all of my efforts to try and like it, I have the opinion that Free Form Passing is unnecessary. It does nothing new, unless the end goal was to make gamers mash more buttons (I.E. making it more interactive). Sadly, I'm thinking someone at EA equates that to making the game have more immersion. While it does "engage" a player more, I don't feel it's enjoyable more than it gets tedious.

Aside from my opinion, though, there are hard facts. When you trigger the play art / WR routes for passing plays, you are already seeing exactly where your WR are going to cut/turn/stop, and you therefore know (because you do get to know and have a feel for your WR) how to time your throws and/or "throw to a spot." It's been in Madden for decades. It's. Already. There.

So, Free Form Passing comes across as just a skill sticks equation of buttons for an already existing function. Thankfully, it can be switched on/off, but one has to wonder if the older code having the new code atop it is why everyone using "classic passing" are having issues more so, per interceptions/overthrows/off balance throwing animations.

At the very, very least, it comes across as poor business being a redundancy oversight - a misuse of time and resources to add something absolutely not in the game before (or just true fixes). At its worst, though (especially to those conspirator types), it's yet again, "look at EA giving us a polished old turd and calling it a new feature!" And if undeniably true, that they did sketchy business ethics overall - a clear decision made to dupe consumers - we'd all likely start jumping on their side and get our own torches and pitchforks.