Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

[shaunlmason]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I'm one of those people! Lol. I played over 100 games of Madden last year against the CPU. I played one online and it was against my cousin. Thats it. I assume there are plenty of people who are like me. I also know that there are plenty who arent.

I'm kind of the spokesman for this...but find a good league with good people online. Way more rewarding than the CPU, and if you do it right not a whole lot more effort involved when you want to play.

[aholbert32]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I'm kind of the spokesman for this...but find a good league with good people online. Way more rewarding than the CPU, and if you do it right not a whole lot more effort involved when you want to play.

I wish I had the time. I've done leagues in the past (OS had an awesome NFL2k5 and Links league back in the Xbox days), but thats when I was young, single and childless. Its damn near impossible for me to find the time to schedule a game against someone and that would hold up the league.

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I wish I had the time. I've done leagues in the past (OS had an awesome NFL2k5 and Links league back in the Xbox days), but thats when I was young, single and childless. Its damn near impossible for me to find the time to schedule a game against someone and that would hold up the league.

Co-sign. Kids and family change the game. Plus I prefer my own sliders when playing the cpu.

[kjcheezhead]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I think some of the metrics would surprise you. I've heard some pretty shocking ones (the amount of people who start a CFM and never play a game, the people who play one H2H game online and never come back, etc.)

There is a definite balance required to make the game realistic yet accessible. Personally, I would approach it so the game defaults to "Rookie" out of the box, and that setting doesn't change ANY player ratings, instead it allows the CPU to help you by changing blocking assignments, alerting you to blitzes and showing you how to hot route to a check with me route, etc. If you chose to play on "All Madden" you get ZERO help.

I liken it to racing games and getting a racing line, or help breaking.

I've done both of those things over the ps3 generation. I've never gotten past week 4 in an offline franchise since madden 08 on the ps 2 and I played less than 10 online games last year. It wasn't because the game was too difficult for me. It was because by my 5th game, I found the game frustratingly unrealistic and also boring. I decided to move on to games that were more fun. I finished 8-2 or 7-3 before someone chimes in I need to learn to play or get my game up.

Adding some realism and immersion might have kept me playing.

[aholbert32]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I've done both of those things over the ps3 generation. I've never gotten past week 4 in an offline franchise since madden 08 on the ps 2 and I played less than 10 online games last year. It wasn't because the game was too difficult for me. It was because by my 5th game, I found the game frustratingly unrealistic and also boring. I decided to move on to games that were more fun. I finished 8-2 or 7-3 before someone chimes in I need to learn to play or get my game up.

Adding some realism and immersion might have kept me playing.

For you....yes. For others....no. You may find gap assignments extremely interesting and many may agree with you. Many others may not find it interesting at all and never use the option. I'm not saying that EA shouldnt consider adding it but they tend to lean towards adding options that 1) will encourage the masses to buy the game and 2) that are going to be universally appreciated.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

...I just think it is silly that there is this perception that making a game realistic is not fun. That was invented by Tiburon, because all of the other sports games that are major players do not subscribe to this lunacy. NBA 2k is 1000x more complicated than madden could dream of being, but it allows for ANYONE to play and enjoy it. There are options that work, and people gravitate to it because it looks just like what they see on TV. Even kids that are 12 years old manage to play it (despite this ridiculous notion that it's far too hard or realistic to make it "fun").

The entire post was truth but I wanted to highlight this in reference to the stuff that comes out EVERY YEAR about this time prior to a new Madden. Since the beginnings of this forum common sense has been posted time and time again, that any company making a simulation should always strive to make it as realistic as possible because through various options it's possible to arcade down a realistic game but it's impossible to real up an arcade game.

No need to even go tip for tat with all the stuff Tiburon states about whatever, that above common sense point is the ONLY way to approach developing a simulation sports video game, anything else is NOT designed to develop a sports sim video game. There is no such thing as a sim/arcade hybrid sports video game, that's some fiction Tiburon attempted to make up to justify how Madden is, a sports video game is either being developed to be a simulation OR an arcade game, can't be both.

So when Tiburon claims that a sports simulation, ie realism is their goal for Madden, all while developing arcade football aspects, they're either being disingenuous with their sim rhetoric or their arcade dev approach but they are certainly being disingenuous. If Nintendo claimed they wanted Mario Cart to be a racing sim but still true to Mario Cart's roots, no sane person would take that serious but otherwise sane people all over, entertain and even embrace something just as absurd about Madden every year because it's labeled "marketing", smh.

[shaunlmason]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I wish I had the time. I've done leagues in the past (OS had an awesome NFL2k5 and Links league back in the Xbox days), but thats when I was young, single and childless. Its damn near impossible for me to find the time to schedule a game against someone and that would hold up the league.

After my first child it took me some time to figure out how to schedule. My wife tolerates me playing because I was already doing it when we met.=) I only usually play a league game every other night, and most of the time it's about right after we put the kids to bed.

[shaunlmason]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

Co-sign. Kids and family change the game. Plus I prefer my own sliders when playing the cpu.

Before anyone says this, I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to play how you want to play.=) Honestly, I get bored playing offline because I don't have the imagination to come up with a story. Online, there is a story because of the dynamics of the other people in the league.

[Senator Palmer]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

Most people dont think that way. Take me. I'm an admin at OS (the biggest hardcore sports video game site) and I've played Madden since the early 90's. In all that time, I have never used a hot route. I've never done a offensive line adjustment. I rarely call audibles. Most people just want to call a play and then run the play. If they added gap assignments, I dont see me using it much. Now if it was automated in some way I think I would love it.

So I think the way EA sees it is why focus on things like gap assignment or route based passing that most fans either wont use or will find tedious. I dont agree with that approach but I understand it.

This doesn't really make any sense. Gap assignments for example are a basic fundamental at every level of football. I learned what gap to fill the first time I put a football helmet on. You literally cannot have an organized game of football without gap assignments.

It's not a "feature" or addition that can or should be looked at as something a gamer would elect to use. It should be hard baked into the core of the game. Not having gap assignments is akin to building a video game of basketball game without a pick and roll, or a baseball game where the cutoff man doesn't get into proper positioning. It's basic stuff that doesn't have to be understood by the gamer unless they want to educate themselves. It's there because that's part of the sport at a rudimentary level.

Gap assignments may not be something casuals will notice, but when has that ever stopped Tiburon? These are the guys who used to put out blogs patting themselves on the back for getting the green dot on the signal-caller's helmets and admitted themselves it was something most people wouldn't notice.

So there's no excuse not to focus on route-based passing, or gap assignments, etc. because it'll make for a better game of football, even if it's something so seamless that most folks will only perceive, because when you don't, the game gets more and more wonky, which leads to more and more cheese, which gets really boring after a while even if you figure out a way to stop it, which leads to "fans" at all levels growing bored with the game anyway.

I mean every year... EVERY year there is at least one or two run plays that are just totally unstoppable like trap plays, or counters, or stretches, that would be consistently defensed with basic run fundamentals that should already be in the game. Instead have you got to go online or dig in a strategy guide that'll tell you to hot route this, crash the line that way, and show blitz into a bunch of mess that no team would do in real life.

And that winds up making a joke out of the game and being way more tedious than it should be which goes against any notions of pick up and play.

It's embarrassing that something so basic isn't already there.

[Hooe]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

This doesn't really make any sense. Gap assignments for example are a basic fundamental at every level of football. I learned what gap to fill the first time I put a football helmet on. You literally cannot have an organized game of football without gap assignments.

I preface this by saying I absolutely agree with you that gap assignment AI is something that I want added see in the game as soon as possible. However, I want to make a point.

I took a poll of my office at my day job - a wide variety of experiences with watching football and playing video games - asking the following: "in the context of American football, do you know what a gap assignment is? (yes / no)"

Not a single person answered "yes".

This is probably a big reason why Tiburon hasn't bothered with gap assignments. Large swaths of their audience don't know and therefore don't care out of pure ignorance. As long as there are blockers making blocks against defenders and defenders attempting to shed blocks, that is enough to make the game authentic for the masses. These people will notice things like the Hit Stick, hot routes, and whatnot, because these are things the user can actually interact with. Gap integrity is the average video game player has no preexisting concept of. Gap integrity is something the user cannot physically interact with. Gap integrity doesn't move copies.

This is a systemic problem in football discourse not just unto Madden. NFL and NCAA broadcast coverage do a terrible job of explaining the details of the game to the public. Personally, I never played organized football, and I didn't know much at all about gap assignments and what until a couple years ago, and even then I had to deliberately seek that information out because I wanted to know more about football; it's not part of the mainstream discourse of the sport. Only last year did Madden even begin to attempt breaking down football with their coverage shells explanations and whatnot in the skills trainer. It's going to be a process to get this stuff into the game in a manner which is easy for the layman to digest.

[shaunlmason]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I preface this by saying I absolutely agree with you that gap assignment AI is something that I want added see in the game as soon as possible. However, I want to make a point.

I took a poll of my office at my day job - a wide variety of experiences with watching football and playing video games - asking the following: "in the context of American football, do you know what a gap assignment is? (yes / no)"

Not a single person answered "yes".

This is probably a big reason why Tiburon hasn't bothered with gap assignments. Large swaths of their audience don't know and therefore don't care out of pure ignorance. As long as there are blockers making blocks against defenders and defenders attempting to shed blocks, that is enough to make the game authentic for the masses. These people will notice things like the Hit Stick, hot routes, and whatnot, because these are things the user can actually interact with. Gap integrity is the average video game player has no preexisting concept of. Gap integrity is something the user cannot physically interact with. Gap integrity doesn't move copies.

This is a systemic problem in football discourse not just unto Madden. NFL and NCAA broadcast coverage do a terrible job of explaining the details of the game to the public. Personally, I never played organized football, and I didn't know much at all about gap assignments and what until a couple years ago, and even then I had to deliberately seek that information out because I wanted to know more about football; it's not part of the mainstream discourse of the sport. Only last year did Madden even begin to attempt breaking down football with their coverage shells explanations and whatnot in the skills trainer. It's going to be a process to get this stuff into the game in a manner which is easy for the layman to digest.

His argument is true though...gap assignments should be ingrained into the game in such a way that laymen don't have to manage them, but an expert should be able to manipulate them.

The difficulty is what happens when you have a front with a certain gap design coupled with a blitz that attacks other gaps and you don't have gap integrity...how does the layman know what they are doing wrong when they get gashed in the open gap?

Of course, to do it correctly you'd have to decouple what the defensive line does from what the linebackers do, which would give you a lot more variety for experimenting, and a lot more potential to be punished if you don't understand.

I'm not sure how you communicate to the user they did something wrong, or teach them in game, etc.

[Hooe]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

His argument is true though...gap assignments should be ingrained into the game in such a way that laymen don't have to manage them, but an expert should be able to manipulate them.

The difficulty is what happens when you have a front with a certain gap design coupled with a blitz that attacks other gaps and you don't have gap integrity...how does the layman know what they are doing wrong when they get gashed in the open gap?

Of course, to do it correctly you'd have to decouple what the defensive line does from what the linebackers do, which would give you a lot more variety for experimenting, and a lot more potential to be punished if you don't understand.

Should be, yes. Absolutely. Zero argument from me.

However, Madden already exists as is, and we can't change the past. We also don't live in a vacuum.

Moving forward, does Tiburon prioritize a wholesale AI rewrite of how DLs and LBs play against the run - minding their gaps - over a new set of passing controls / a new package-based play calling paradigm / a new way to make plays downfield as a wide receiver or cornerback / Hit Stick 3.0 while making incremental adjustments to defensive AI to eventually get to the point we all want over the course of several years? I don't think they do on account of the audience of the game. The masses want the big-ticket new gameplay features to justify the purchase of the new year's game. That's all I'm really trying to say, that my expectations are ultimately tempered on that front.

[Senator Palmer]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

I preface this by saying I absolutely agree with you that gap assignment AI is something that I want added see in the game as soon as possible. However, I want to make a point.

I took a poll of my office at my day job - a wide variety of experiences with watching football and playing video games - asking the following: "in the context of American football, do you know what a gap assignment is? (yes / no)"

Not a single person answered "yes".

I totally get what you are saying, but as I was trying to explain in the rest of my previous post -- and maybe I didn't do that good a job -- it doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter. You're building a product for mass consumption. I would think you would want to build the best, most complete product imaginable. Steve Jobs insisted the the original iPhones be built with a specific type of glass while most everyone else was using plastic. It would have been easier and cheaper to go that route, but he felt there was a certain beauty, a certain elegance to that setup. He insisted on rounded corners, no stylus, etc.

Now he knew no one, consumers especially would particularly care about the details, but he understood that the details, even the most insignificant ones would add up to something elegant, something unique that the consumer would intuitively gravitate to.

That's what separates great design and prideful craftmanship from the mediocre. It's not ignoring the little details because no one is going to notice, because, actually, people will notice, even if they can't quite put it into words.


Now having said all that, gap assignments in my opinion don't even remotely fall into the category or minutae because it's just so elementary. Even if people have no idea how they work, even if they can't tell you that the WILL backer missing closing out the backside A gap and that's why the runner cut it back up the middle for a huge gain, they can tell when something if effed up on defense when it happens.

They can tell you in Madden that trap plays are unstoppable. Can't necessarily tell you why, and they shouldn't have to, but they know if they run 'em, they're gonna get five yards a pop.

I seriously hope the excuse after all these years of not having correct gap assignments is not because people don't care about them. Gap assignments are as basic to the game of football, almost as much as the ball itself.

Casual fans didn't care about double-team blocks, or the guard working up to the second level on zone plays in the running game, but the team continued to try to re-designed it anyway. They could have kept the same blocking and no one would have cared except the few hawks on sites like this. They're the ones who wanted to set the standard of realism. So, it's totally reasonable to expect the other side of the ball to keep pace.

[aholbert32]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

The entire post was truth but I wanted to highlight this in reference to the stuff that comes out EVERY YEAR about this time prior to a new Madden. Since the beginnings of this forum common sense has been posted time and time again, that any company making a simulation should always strive to make it as realistic as possible because through various options it's possible to arcade down a realistic game but it's impossible to real up an arcade game.

No need to even go tip for tat with all the stuff Tiburon states about whatever, that above common sense point is the ONLY way to approach developing a simulation sports video game, anything else is NOT designed to develop a sports sim video game. There is no such thing as a sim/arcade hybrid sports video game, that's some fiction Tiburon attempted to make up to justify how Madden is, a sports video game is either being developed to be a simulation OR an arcade game, can't be both.

So when Tiburon claims that a sports simulation, ie realism is their goal for Madden, all while developing arcade football aspects, they're either being disingenuous with their sim rhetoric or their arcade dev approach but they are certainly being disingenuous. If Nintendo claimed they wanted Mario Cart to be a racing sim but still true to Mario Cart's roots, no sane person would take that serious but otherwise sane people all over, entertain and even embrace something just as absurd about Madden every year because it's labeled "marketing", smh.

Damn near every sports game is a sim/arcade hybrid. EVERY GAME. From the Show to NBA2k to Madden. Out of the box NBA2k is a arcadey dunkfest with poor rebounding logic and hardly any fouls called. Once I tweak it with sliders and coach settings, I get it to play a realistic game of Basketball. Same goes with the Show.

The difference is some steer closer to a true simulation and others steer closer to an arcade game. Its disingenuous to act as if EA hasnt taken steps the last few years to make the game more sim. All of these features were added in the last version of Madden:

- Improved OL/DL interaction
- Improved man/zone logic
- Increased pass inaccuracy
- Playcalling improvements.

Now were all of those things implemented successfully...no. But the fact that the attempt was made shows that EA has an interest in bringing the game closer to a sim game. You are completely justified in being upset that they havent accomplished making this game a complete sim (and you can show that buy not buying the game). I just dont agree that the have an arcade approach to improving the game.

Finally "Mario Kart" is a poor analogy. Madden isnt "Mario Kart." Blitz was more like Mario Kart. A better analogy would be Gran Turismo vs. Forza. I dont know much about either game but I remember back in the day racing fans would tout Forza as the better racing simulation because of all of the options, tuning and realistic driving feel that game had.

GT didnt have the options that Forza had but people still bought it because for many it was close enough to a real driving simulation. Most people just want close enough. I know thats a hard pill to swallow but while there is a vocal minority here who would like EA to tear down Madden from the bottom up....most of us are OK if they continue to add simulation elements and fix parts of the engine that are clearly broken.

[PSUEagle]

Re: Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

It's not a "feature" or addition that can or should be looked at as something a gamer would elect to use. It should be hard baked into the core of the game. Not having gap assignments is akin to building a video game of basketball game without a pick and roll, or a baseball game where the cutoff man doesn't get into proper positioning. It's basic stuff that doesn't have to be understood by the gamer unless they want to educate themselves. It's there because that's part of the sport at a rudimentary level.

This. Love the basketball analogy, too: it's so true.

And the way you "solve" the problem of users not understanding how this stuff works is two fold:

1. Create a tutorial module similar to what I believe they did with passing (a very good idea by EA). Explain run fits and responsibilities vs run and pass with each coverage. If that means that only basic coverages make it in the game, so be it: I'd rather have 10 total coverages/blitzes that operated correctly than the hundreds now that are mostly useless (and that savvy users don't touch, anyway).

2. This will be controversial, but I would also eliminate/severely restrict the ability to hot route. Especially defensively. Real life here, but I've never coached a game where we as a staff say "let's tell the DE to go into contain because we think a screen pass is coming." Or let's have two different zones (purple and light blue) for the flats, etc.

Offensively, the only audibles that should occur are either changing a play at the LOS entirely (totally reasonable) or changing a backside route combo (also reasonable). What isn't reasonable is changing four guys on the field to complement the one "money" route you found. The idea that Peyton Manning is going to the line and making **** up like a pick up game is insulting.

Defensively, allow users to build custom adjustments based on coverage, front, and offensive formation/personnel group. Considering that an offense can only line up a handful of ways (2X2, 3X1, 3X2, 2X1, 4X1, and 1X1) this shouldn't be that difficult, especially since the last two are pretty uncommon at the pro level. I know it would save me a ton of time/aggravation to have this stuff already done instead of having to do it every play, especially when users in Sim leagues now a days will no huddle.