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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Let me apologize from the start if this turns into a big mess. This will be more of a preamble. I'll try to keep it as easy to read as posible. I honestly don't know where to start, as there are a great many topics to address, but I'll do my best. I love football. For example, I am currently living in South America with my wonderful wife and in my spare time I am helping to coach and train the sport down here.
One day back in January 2009 I turned on my copy of Madden 09 and logged in for an online quick play match. While the game was loading, I saw a bumper from EA asking for feed back on their game, I felt very excited. I hoped that I could help improve Madden.
The link they shared to give feedback for the upcomming Madden 10 game was for a blog by Ian. In his blog serise, he linked back to Operation Sports as a prominant page with community and developer interaction. Leaving that link was surely a double edged sword. Letting people know about OS and that the devs respond to us on a more personal level here invited the trolls, and for those who have been here for a while know, there were pleanty to go around. Never the less, the dev's stayed... at least for about one and a half cycles.
Here at OS, Ian left a blue print of sorts on what "great feedback" looks like. A bullet point list organizing what you do and do not like about the game, and a conclusión of proposed solutions. That's it. Don't go on rants. Don't get side traked. Just fill out a report and submit it. So, I got to work on mine for Madden 09.
Here is a great time to tell you my own personal philosophy on helping change a video game: You aren't going to fix everything right away. You have to be willing to accept that some things might not be fixed for 3+ years. Whiel we would all like to see broad sweeping changes and imporvements to the game, that has to be a direction goal from the start. Also, as someone who was invited to a community event, that doesn't give me any power to make real changesto the game. Let's stay grounded here for a momento. the 8 of us that were invited, were invited for various reasons to give feed back on their game. Not to redesign it. They are still going to do what they are going to do. I can meerly make a list/report and suggest, "Hey, maybe you could do this?"
So, what does that mean? Well, at some point in building my list for Madden 09 and posting about Madden 10 I wrote the following, which Ian himself says was the biggest reason he invited me to M11: "Forget about comparing Madden to ESPN or APF. If you want to make the best football video game, you have to start by making the best Madden." I continued to explin that most of the fans still talk about how Madden 04, 05, and 07 on the PS2 were the best Madden video games and how PS3/360 Madden was still inferior despite looking pretty in screen shots.
However, by the end of the community event, I felt somewhat defeated by the whole thing. You see everything comes down to a very simple question: "Will doing X increase sales?" Rukus talkes a bit about marketing in his videos but not enough is said in my opinión. From my sit downs with Phil and Will [the lead producers and who it was my understanding gave the real green light on projects, as the job of the producer is to manage where the money goes] that was the recurring theme. As Phil put it, "back of the box features." What is it that they are going to spend money on that they can slap on the back of the box to sound exciting and help sell the game? When someone buys a copy of Madden 09, what incintive can you give them to upgrade to Madden 10? To 11? to 12? Repeate business is their life blood. What keeps shooters like Cal of Duty, Battlefield and Halo live [all of which I also play] are unlockable and new maps to explore. You don't get that with Madden. At least, not until Madden Ultimate Team.
This excuse is probably the single biggest obsticle to improving Madden. Time and time again; Idea after idea; Discussion after discussion; it coems back to, "Yeah, that would really make the video game mroe realstic and enjoyable... but can we really SELL that idea to the average gamer?" But, you might be asking, is WHY that questino has to be asked? Because most of the "ideas" take a huge investment of resources to impliment, and if you are going to invest said resources, then you need to expect a return on that investment. Will improving line play inteactions cause copies to fly off the shelves next year? Probably not... though I do argue that a lot of hard core gamers will come back. That there are a lot of us who have given up on the franchise in general and that there are tons of posts all the time about people who have no interest in buyign the game becasue it "never gets any better" and what they constaly mean by that is that it doesn't respect or represent the sport up to the standards of todays technology. When you look at NBA 2k for exampl eand how it crushed NBA Live like a bug [and what ESPN was likely to do to Madden had the NFL not gone all exclusive on us], I would continue to argue that players want a more realstic game. I argue that REPEATE business, not new business, is the life blood of your game.
This is getting kind of long and I still want to write a lot more. I will post this now and begin on part 2.Last edited by PGaither84; 02-21-2014, 08:30 AM.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Sorry, I don't recognize the screen name... though Texas gives me a few hints (Is that you V?)
Anyway...
In this part I want to be a bit more organized. Hoever, I want to finish by talking about personal realtionships a Little bit more as that is a big theme with Rukus and his videos.
First, I never met the man. He was there before I came and came back after I was invited. From watching his videos last night though, it became pretty clear to me that he had a real problema controlling his mouth. there is differnece between standing up for what you belvie in and having self control. Multiple times Rukus makes homophopic slurs and jokes which EA really wouldn't want to associate itself with. Furthermore, after giving him warnings, his attitude was still, "No. I'm going to say what I want to say." Combined with his admitted aggressive behavior towards others, I can easily see why he is no longer a game changer... even if he can't. It sounds like it has Little to nothing to do with Madden and everything to do with him beign a difficult person to work with.
Secondly, it takes all kinds of people to make uwp tihs world and I would agree that there are a lot at EA who don't want Madden to be a simulation of football. They only want the illusion of realisim. The easist way to find out who these people are is when they say something to the effect of, "It's just a video game. It is supposed to be fun and accessable." To me, that is the biggest excuse of all to not change the game for the better. These people don't want to be punished for beign bad at football. When cornered on a difficult topic near and dear to their free style hearts, this is thier go to excuse. We will talk about this more later, along with my responce to that excuse.
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So here we go:
Marketing: In a nut shell, they want a flashy back of the box feature every year. Nothing new here, but there is more to it than just that. Marketing and budgeting resources plays auge role in developing the game and implementing changes. We've alredy talked about that though.
Developers: To be honest, I like the guys I met, but in the end I got the feeling their hands were often tied by marketing.
Game Play: This isn't the palce to make a wishlist. That isn't the topic at hand. However, I am going to share some stories with you about game play at the madden 11 community event and about the game in general
In studio I wanted to show off a list of problems I took with me and expected to see and wanted addressed. one of which is "Ratings don't matter. Size and weight doesn't matter." I went in and started a franchise mode, singed punters to my team, made them offensive linemen, and traded my starters for draft picks and or star weapons on offense. I then exported my team and loaded up a play now game and played on default All-Pro. I went to work. I ran the ball well, I threw the ball well. I had an effective offense. I brought a Central Game Play developer over to sit down and talk about what was happening. The point was NOT that I COULD make punters linemen. The point was that some tiny lineman with the lowest posible rating of 15 at all linemen ratings was able to compete in All-Pro difficulty.
That led to an inside look at the code where we learn about die rolls that determine the outcome of plays, which are modified by various factors including ratings and slider settings. I also learned about "win" and "super win" animations. Players pretty much crash into each other like a child playing with action figures until the game determines a winner. The level of success will determine which kind of animation to play. What is interesting to me here is that the tolos are in place to make size, weight and ratings matter, but they are not being used efficiently and effectively.
EA has a simple "if/then" code structure with modifications. The problema is that when there is a 20+ point difference in ratings, super win animatinos should trigger like 99% of the time. However, even then, such a simple logical change triggers a huge philisohpical problema about accessability to casual palyers and how EA fears and wishes to cater to them. You see, as Rukus said, EA doesn't want tors to learn how to play encourage play football better. Unlike on the PS2 where they had an in depth trainer led by John Madden himself that gave you a tutorial on how to play football, and had had mini games that made you better on the sticks... now they just want to make everyone the same. They want to appeal to the lowest common denominator and not encoruage improvement. This is why the game will "never" change.
The other big thing that I talked about were overlaod bitzes and line protection. Still to this day, with the exception of maybe 5 or 6 defensive palys, if you call an over load blitz and the offense is only blocking with 5, the AI will have the guard or tackle away from the overlaod slide over and block the free rusher. The overlaod blitz, as opposed to a run bltiz which is a balanced blitz desgined to fill gaps to stop the run first, is designed to create a 5 on 4 and ultimately a 2 on 1 situation where someoen will be ableto shoot a gap unblocked by a linemen. This is real football and there are real football solution in Madden ot coutner this right now. Use sldie protectino if you see it coming. Use a TE or back to block. Throw to a hot recevier in the vacated área. However, EA doesn't want casual players to be forced into playing anything resembling real football. They don't see it as rewarding good football. Rather, they see it as punishing people for palyign bad football, and they don't want that.
Now, deeper still, it was confirmed that the reason this happens; the reason that there is no tiered palycalling is that the offensive line knows what the defense is supposed to be doing at all times. That is why nanos exist. That is why "free style/tournament" palyers are agaisnt simulation style football. they don't want ot lose thier edge to epopel woh understnad football better than them. They want to out video game you... not out coach you. nanos exist becasue you are simply creating confusión for the AI, which are not programmed to handle real football situations.
The offenseive protection being tied directly to the defensive play call is why we don't have tiered play calling. in order to give us 2k play calling, they would have to overhaul the enitre game and rework blocking at a fundamental level. Would that imoprove the game a lot? No doubt. is it posible with today's tech? It has already been done over 10 years ago. Would intestign the energy and resources in making such seewping changes to the game drastically increase sales? Oh... here we go again. Simply put, this isn't "sexy" and would only increase the gap between experienced and casual gamers rather than close it, which is their real goal here.
I still have a lot more to say, but I think I have said enough for now.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Okay, I need to say this too...
After day one in studio showing them the thing about punters playing o-line and the protection issues with backside guards and tackles sliding over, the very next day, in studio the Central game play guys aid they made quick and simple changes to the game. When booting the game up and taking a look, you could see an unpolished but working band aid to the game when I called an overload blitz. You could see the guard or tackle on a given play step back, and try to jitter and slide over and then hit an imaginary wall somewhere around the middle of the next palyer over. he would then keep trying to slide over to no avail. you could see the code fighting with itself and it was kind of funny.
You could also see that with one night of work that they were able to impelment a small change that could fundamentally change how Madden was played. I think that also showed the truth behind the excuse of money and time and resources needed to "fix" the game. So what happened to this small "fix?" it is in Madden 11 on the disc. It has since been "patched" out of the game. If you still have a copy of the game, put it in be sure to create a new profile, or at least sign out of your current gamer profile and be offline so as not to use any updates. Go into practice as a defensive team. Call an over load blitz, have the offense come out with a play with 5 receiving targets. Watch what happens. I just did it right now on my 360 before typing this up just to be sure, as memories can get fuzzy over time.
This was part of the game. While not perfect, sim style over load blitzes were (for a short time) part of Madden. This was something I could point to, along with a couple other things that as things I helped "improve" about Madden, only to latter see it ripped out.
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Looking for me Paul!? I'm still here, also back working at EA no less.Please take note that most of what I say and post is made in satire.
Follow me on twitter @Equipment_GuruComment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Paul look at my Xbox gamertag, that should clue you in. You should tell these guys about the tony romo and broken tackles issue, lol. See, this is why all if these excuses about suits and all that is nonsense. The code is written during amateur hour. Yes, marketing is a nuisance, but marketing doesn't write the code. People want to ignore the fact that several former employees have acknowledged the fact that the guys working in the game are not very good, but honestly you don't need to believe them, just look at the game. Madden is the laughing stock of the sports genre. Next gen is a big improvement but still not close and still can't touch 2k8 from a simulation standpoint. Madden doesn't sell because they make it accessible, it sells because of legacy and name recognition. The other sports games are much more realistic and polished products. They also sell well and those sports (other than FIFA) are not nearly as popular as the nfl. I still own my copies of apf and 2k5. Not because I want to or because I'm a 2k "fanboy". Hell I thought MVP baseball was the best baseball game I ever played and madden from 1989 through the early 90s was amazing. I own this games because they are still the most realistic representation of football I can find.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
So now it's Madden 16 I should be excited for? When the PS4 version was announced, everyone was like "this is the year, they are going to knock it out of the park with this one!"...
As soon as some info surfaced on it and people realized it was the same old nonsense, these same people praising the game backtracked and said "oh the development cycle was too short for EA to focus on a next-gen game, so Madden 15 is the one that we will truly see next-gen Madden"...
And now that football season is over and we are nearing the next version of Madden, the same people are backtracking AGAIN stating that Madden 16 is now the one we should be excited for? REALLY?!?!?!
Give me a breakLast edited by HingleMcCringleberry; 02-21-2014, 01:18 PM.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
That's good my man. I forgive you for making Patrick Willis look like the incredible hulk in Madden 10, but other than that, you do a fine job.
I do have to ask what is up with the terrible job EA has done with the 49ers uniforms [or at least the alternates] in Madden 25?
- The "striped socks" have no stripes. They are just off White.
- The 80's uniforms have numbers on the shoulder as well as the sleave, when it should only be on the sleve.
- The 80's helmet [which includes the 1994 throwbacks] for some reason have numbers on them... which they shouldn't, and of all things, those numbers are black [which looks extra terrible on the red White and gold helmet]
- The 1996-2008 tops are still missing despite having the white pants version of them.
[all of this is based on the Xbox 360, I don't have a next gen console yet]
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Something else that bothers me about ratings is why Donny moore "hates on" line backers. Line backers all have TERRIBLE man and zone coverage ratings. The best man coverage line bacekr only has a 74 rating, while there are 27 Tight Ends with 74 or higher route running. The same goes with zone coverage. Linebackers know how to play man and zoen coverage. Some are even really good at it. We should see linebacekrs with low 90's and high 80's man and zone coverages. Only a few in the 90's but some. If the game is tuned properly, then the true reason why a line backer being lined up on a WR should be a mismatch is becasue of speed, and agility, which should be higher, or in the case of a Wes Welker, his 97+ route running will still "win" agaisnt a theoretical 92 man coverage OLB.
Hoenstly, with my own custom rosters, I go in and edit every linebacker. I give everyone a generic +15 man coverage [bring the best only up to 89 Man coverage] and +10 to zone [making the best a 93 or 94] Even with that improvemtn, it isn't liek everyone is amazing. there are only a handfull of elite coverage linebacekrs in my roster, but now every is less terrible. I guess I should share my roster later now that is a thing I can do in M25.Last edited by PGaither84; 02-21-2014, 01:46 PM.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
So basically........we all are screwed and just have to learn to live with it. Everything we already thought was going on, really is going on. Smoke and mirrors. Sad really.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Oh, yeah! Hahaha. I see you online all the time but you never reply man. We need to talk Madden more often.
Yeah... the Tony Romo breaking tackles thingy. Here's the story the best I can remember [feel free to correct me]: In Madden 10 there was a highlight uploaded to EA's Sports World thingy and it was the highest rated highlight of that game. Some user controlling Romo breaks like 7 tackels at least (maybe 8) in the snow no less, and runs for like 47+ yards adna score. Ian comments and you can see in the video what is happening is that the opposing user is mashing the "strip" button to try and forcé a fumble, which was also the go-to tackle button for competative gamers. they jsut palyed the odds. You'll break some, but I'll cause some fubmle and it will end up in my favor more oten tan not. So, becasuse of the code, a fialed stripe animation results in a broken tackle. it isn't that the defender wraps up and tries to punch the ball out Pat Tillman style... so. they go all or nothing in Maddne 10 when you press and hold srtip. it Works or they break your tackle.
So, I an talks about how that was the casue of the highlight nad something else about how to keep that from happening again, they wanted to add some kind of pregressive broken tackle counter that for some reason made it more and more difficult for you to break consecutive tackles. Um, no... that isn't how you shoud "fix" the problem. Their fundamental approach to how to make the game is flawed.
I am no programmer, so I don't know how to write code, but even I know the logical solution to these problems. There are tons of simple football fixes to Madden's flaws that EA just won't use. They, as a whole don't want and/or don't know how to fix them.
On the topic of casual vs hard core gamers and accessability, what I tried to remind EA is they have this magical thing called DIFFICULTY and that the game out of the box should be set to Rookie or Pro difficulty. That core football should always apply, but by playing on an easier difficulties, you simply make the user's players win matchups they might otherwise have no business winning. Things like gap assignments, pass protection responcibilities, the ability to tackel and so forth should be a standard. However, let's say you have the Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, or Atlanta Falcons who in real life each had one of the bottom 5 worst defense in football last year, then on rookie mode you should see them play like super stars. Watch them shed blocks, swat passes, make sure tackles and hit sticks. So on and so forth. However, as you increase the difficulty, the ratings should matter more and more for individual match ups.
To me, difficulty is what shoudl be, in part, the great equalizer and what will allow casual palyers to enjoy the game. I know that my best friend in real life is a hard core FPS player and while he really likes sports, he is a casual in Madden and just likes to play on Pro with game flow and the custom playbooks that I créate for him. My former boss from the states was 42 year old who also liked to just play on rookie and with my help he stepped his game up to Pro. he was still too casual to paly All-Pro or higher, but he learned enough to enjoy pro difficulty and I evne talked him into starting a franchise in Madden 11 instead of just Play Now games. Every Saturday in the office he would tell me about how his franchise was going and it was cool to just talk casual Madden with him. Give him a play to try out here and there. That sort of thing. However, here is what is more important... they are casual and will not and do not buy the game every year. NO MATTER WHAT is on the back of the box.Last edited by PGaither84; 02-21-2014, 04:02 PM.Comment
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Re: So who do we believe when it comes to the GameChanger program?
Guess there is no hope for videogame football. Madden wanted to be the only kid on the block, and now it really is with the demise of NCAA Football(not that is was leaps and bounds better than Madden this gen).http://twitter.com/sageinfinite
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#makethemaddenforumgreatagainComment
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[that were never real but in Madden for a long time.]
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