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

[Armor and Sword]

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

The ideas implemented in M15 were so shallow and ended up doing more harm than good for online CFM guys. That paired with a poor WR/DB system that heavily favored the DB's just killed any interest in this game for me.

I hope M16 is good, but not going to hold out hope it gets much better. I'd post a laundry list of changes I want to see but nobody of significance is coming here to look at them.

I'm pretty apathetic at this point.

Agree about online.....blech.

Offline....game shined for me.

[bucky60]

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

You can argue points and views. Leave the attacks on personality and mod style of my staff out of your posts.

PM me if you have any issues.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3

I sent a PM.

[Big FN Deal]

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

Like I stated in an earlier post, Tiburon needs a separate team in the background working on a new core engine/building a new game. This should have started in 08-09 when they knew the current engine was crap.

What's maddening is the fact the MUT is a cash cow. That money should be funneled back into the game through a bigger dev team. Just have a team that works on future technology that will be implemented. Really dig in and start overhauling and replacing code. So by the time the next cycle roll through they have the tech developed and already start identifying and squashing bugs and glitches. It seems like now too often there's still say too much tuning even at launch.

Apparently EA/Tiburon agrees because they already have made the claim that they were doing this, in reference to ghost teams working on tech and coding for future iterations, a few years ago. Now whether that's actually the case or just more "marketing", meh. Some people seem to get annoyed with some of the detractors of Madden comments but most are based on claims that actually come out of EA/Tiburon, not something people just make up.

Also I'm not understanding this stuff about some "niche" market, what market is that exactly, sports sims? If so I don't get how Madden is supposedly not targeting that market when that's who they heavily market to, at least with their rhetoric. Not to mention the game's genre is "sports simulation", which is no more niche than RPGs or FP Shooters, just seems like this term is getting thrown around out of context, in the sense it's attempting to be used to marginalize a sect of gamers vs describe an entire game genre. If anything the unique niche market would be the arcade/sim market which never existed and still doesn't today, at least not the way Tiburon and some people are trying to claim.

The history of sports sim VIDEO GAMES, I emphasize video games to avoid any semantics with bringing programs/team management software like Stratomatic, OOTP, etc, into this, has shown that creating a sports simulation video game with as many options as possible is the way to make them accessible to a wider market, whether that be arcade, RPG, co-op, etc, not trying to make them both arcade and sim, there is no such thing.

[kjcheezhead]

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

I think Ive discovered the difference between me and users like Sage and Big FN Deal:

We both looked at games like Madden 07-08 and said "This game sucks but I'll make the best of it".

The difference is I look at Madden now and think "This is much better than what I played back in 07 and 08. "

You guys look at Madden now and think "Its been almost ten years. The game is somewhat better but it should be MUCH better than it is now."

For me, madden is peaked on the ps2 Rob Lowe. Madden 04 had a play creator. Madden 04, with the player movement of ps2. If this team had approached the new systems with a SIM mind and had real player movement and route based system this could've been amazing. But it can't be added because exploits would break the game.

Ps2 also had vision cone. Say what you want about it, it was an option to add difficulty to the game. There are zero options to change the passing game now. Just one button tethered passing.

I don't want to go back and play those games, but I can't just deal with it and play current Madden because it's better than the dark ages of the early ps3. I choose to play the show and nba 2k while I wait for Madden to do something it could have done but chose not to because it's the only football game we get.

[KCDurant]

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

For me, madden is peaked on the ps2 Rob Lowe. Madden 04 had a play creator. Madden 04, with the player movement of ps2. If this team had approached the new systems with a SIM mind and had real player movement and route based system this could've been amazing. But it can't be added because exploits would break the game.
and play current Madden because it's better than the dark ages of the early ps3. I choose to play the show and nba 2k while I wait for Madden to do something it could have done but chose not to because it's the only football game we get.

This had me cracking up lol. Yeah the amount of removed features over the year has been crazy.

[aholbert32]

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

Apparently EA/Tiburon agrees because they already have made the claim that they were doing this, in reference to ghost teams working on tech and coding for future iterations, a few years ago. Now whether that's actually the case or just more "marketing", meh. Some people seem to get annoyed with some of the detractors of Madden comments but most are based on claims that actually come out of EA/Tiburon, not something people just make up.

Also I'm not understanding this stuff about some "niche" market, what market is that exactly, sports sims? If so I don't get how Madden is supposedly not targeting that market when that's who they heavily market to, at least with their rhetoric. Not to mention the game's genre is "sports simulation", which is no more niche than RPGs or FP Shooters, just seems like this term is getting thrown around out of context, in the sense it's attempting to be used to marginalize a sect of gamers vs describe an entire game genre. If anything the unique niche market would be the arcade/sim market which never existed and still doesn't today, at least not the way Tiburon and some people are trying to claim.

The history of sports sim VIDEO GAMES, I emphasize video games to avoid any semantics with bringing programs/team management software like Stratomatic, OOTP, etc, into this, has shown that creating a sports simulation video game with as many options as possible is the way to make them accessible to a wider market, whether that be arcade, RPG, co-op, etc, not trying to make them both arcade and sim, there is no such thing.

LOL. Thats not even true. Maybe when it comes to people like you and Sage but not most people here. This thread was one of the few times I've seen someone take an actual quote from a Madden dev and use it to justify their anger. Even with that quote you could argue that EA wasnt lying about moving the game toward being more sim.

For example:

Rex said they plan to take this game toward a more sim style and everyone can agree that last year they added some features that took it in that direction (we can disagree about whether they were successful).

Now people like me read that quote and think "Based on Madden's track record, they will add a few sim like features but most of that is lip service"

Others will say ignore EA's track record and say "He said the game is going to be "sim" so expect it to be on the level of the Show/NBA 2k. If not, he was lying or being disingenuous."

The problem with that thinking is THERE IS NOT A SINGLE GAME IN EA SPORTS' CATALOG THAT IS A SIM.

NBA Live: ****ty animations. No true or expansive franchise mode. No in game injuries. Very few sliders. Ai issues galore.

FIFA: No sliders. Inconsistent fouls and generally only on slide tackles. Most teams have similar styles. No multiple user franchise.

NHL: No multiple user franchise. Penalties rarely called even when sliders are at 100%. No true team styles. AI issues galore. No editing players

EA UFC: No sliders. No editing fighters. Small number of CAFs. Basic fighting AI and aggression (improved since release).

I'd argue that the only sim game they've ever created was the last version of MVP Baseball.

My point is: When does it become the user's fault for having these expectations? EA does what it always does. They market the game and hope to bring in the biggest amount of buyers it can.

They actually think that your "everybody will love a sim game theory" is wrong. They show that by refusing to take that approach with any game they make.

They argue that they have the top selling soccer game in the world that obliterates its competition every year (The more sim game "PES")

They argue that they've always had the most arcadey football game and before 2k lowered the price of their game, it obliterated the more sim competition (Gameday, Fever, 2k) every year.

Their golf games outsell every other golf game.

Their NHL game put the 2k game (the much better and more sim NHL2k) out of business and did it with a gimmick (the shot stick).

Now some of you may say "What about NBA 2k?" Well NBA 2k's dominance started the year that EA decided to be somewhat revolutionary and created a new game from the ground up.....and they failed miserably.

NBA Live 06 on the 360 was an abomination and it took EA 4 years to get back to the level of having a decent nba game and by then it was too late because NBA2k used those four years to make it one of the best sports series ever.

Your expectations and demands should be realistic and based on something. The problem is EA isnt giving you any reason to think that the game will ever meet the standards that you want based on their history.

[BezO]

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

Thats a hell of an assumption there. There are plenty of gamers who arent that interested in a sim level of realism. The tournament players. The cheesers. They like playing Madden as it is with all of the glitch exploits and unrealistic gameplay it currently has.

And guess what? Their money is worth the same as yours. And just like the sim heads walk away because the game is unrealistic at times, there is a chance they will walk away from the game if EA made it more difficult for them to play the game the way they want to play it. The difference is there appear to be more of them than guys like OSers...

From what I know of those types of players, they "lab" to find & practice those exploits. They'd do the same to find new exploits in a more realistic game (there will alwasy be exploits no matter how realistic). And I believe they'd also lab to discover good FOOTBALL strategy as well. I believe they rely on exploits & cheese because that's what currently works in Madden. If the game were more realistic, those players would rely on more traditional football strategy because it would work.

...I'm getting old so I may not be remembering this correctly but back in the day I heard that Ian wanted to use part of a dev cycle to stomp out some of the biggest cheats and exploits people were using online. He wanted the game to be played more realistic and sim like online. So he had their Madden open house where they invite a bunch of online gamers and those gamers flipped the hell out when they heard those changes. And that was the last time I heard that dev team talk about fixing exploits.

This dev team has mentioned the same thing about wanting to make online and offline play more realistic but as you can see they only go so far. They dont want to risk alienating the cheesers who will buy the game just to pacify the sim gamers who may buy the game.

I can see this happening initially. They show up with a bag of tricks that don't work. But like I said, I think those same folks would buy the game, put in the work they always do, and learn new tricks.

[aholbert32]

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

From what I know of those types of players, they "lab" to find & practice those exploits. They'd do the same to find new exploits in a more realistic game (there will alwasy be exploits no matter how realistic). And I believe they'd also lab to discover good FOOTBALL strategy as well. I believe they rely on exploits & cheese because that's what currently works in Madden. If the game were more realistic, those players would rely on more traditional football strategy because it would work.

I can see this happening initially. They show up with a bag of tricks that don't work. But like I said, I think those same folks would buy the game, put in the work they always do, and learn new tricks.

But why risk it? They already have evidence that a majority of sim heads will buy the game no matter what because we have for the past decade. Why risk alienating another group of potential buyers to appease people who will buy the game not matter what?

[SageInfinite]

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

But why risk it? They already have evidence that a majority of sim heads will buy the game no matter what because we have for the past decade. Why risk alienating another group of potential buyers to appease people who will buy the game not matter what?

I think they still buy it as well. It's the only NFL game. Hell it's the only football game as of now. That's the main factor keeping anyone buying it(not to say people don't enjoy it). I don't see guys like that just putting it down, just like you don't see the sim heads just putting it down.

You have a point about all the EA games having that fun factor/accessibility tied into it, but Madden just looks so bad in motion for me, it's the killer. I just can't get past the bad animations and the way players move.

[shaunlmason]

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

When Ian and the previous dev team used to interact with the forums. They used to produce videos specifically for us showing new animations and changes from the previous years. Then they went away for multiple reasons.

1) OSers are some of the most demanding fans you will find on the net. When Ian didnt follow through on some of the things he promised, OSers pretty much ran him off. He wasnt very thick skinned but many of the people went a bit overboard. This is the reason we are really protective of devs who visit our site.

2) EA and the dev teams realized they dont really need to get our input and/or they can get our input without actually interacting with us. Like I said, most people here will buy Madden this year like they always do. So its would be a bit of a waste of marketing/development funds to market to fans who are going to buy your game no matter what.

OS is a difficult place to interact sometimes.

I know personally I stopped posting here for a long time because I was just trying to come here and share what I knew (as much as NDA's will allow me) and I was constantly called a EA cheerleader (that's the nicest term someone used). I've been around OS for a LONG time. I lurked for years and years before anyone knew who I was. This is where my love for SIM came from. It honestly was pretty deflating to feel attacked by the people who you consider your brethren.

The truth is though that experience really made me bitter about OS in general for a long time, I was still being a cheerleader for the same things you guys are.

Now that I've been around the GameChanger program for a few years, I'm far more comfortable just relaying anecdotal information, because I've learned to work within the NDA (which basically is to prevent me from outing future plans).

All that said, I understand why EA pulled back from here. The moderators try really hard to keep it safe for people with special colored names, but it's tough to balance that with people wanting to voice their opinion. On my own sites, I've had to do the same, and it's tough to keep people focused without appearing to be a EA Stormtrooper.

[shaunlmason]

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

They can. It's called rookie difficulty. The difficulty system in Madden is flawed. The AI should be affected not the ratings in terms of difficulty. Playing on higher difficulty now is just learning how to game the game.

I think Madden should be a bridge between watching and playing. They should be able to take lessons they've learned in Madden and use them when watching a game to really understand and see why plays happen as they do. Even if they don't care Madden should abide by real world logic and movement. If someone wants to run 4 verts every play let them. Eventually they're gonna learn what coverage it works best against if it keeps ending up in picks. It should be a natural learning process.

Madden is afraid to punish the user for poor decisions but I think part of that is because EA knows their engine is too flawed to realistically portray a game of football.

100%, I said this a few pages back.=)

[kjcheezhead]

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

OS is a difficult place to interact sometimes.

I know personally I stopped posting here for a long time because I was just trying to come here and share what I knew (as much as NDA's will allow me) and I was constantly called a EA cheerleader (that's the nicest term someone used). I've been around OS for a LONG time. I lurked for years and years before anyone knew who I was. This is where my love for SIM came from. It honestly was pretty deflating to feel attacked by the people who you consider your brethren.

The truth is though that experience really made me bitter about OS in general for a long time, I was still being a cheerleader for the same things you guys are.

Now that I've been around the GameChanger program for a few years, I'm far more comfortable just relaying anecdotal information, because I've learned to work within the NDA (which basically is to prevent me from outing future plans).

All that said, I understand why EA pulled back from here. The moderators try really hard to keep it safe for people with special colored names, but it's tough to balance that with people wanting to voice their opinion. On my own sites, I've had to do the same, and it's tough to keep people focused without appearing to be a EA Stormtrooper.

I don't doubt that but the feeling can go both ways at times. I mention gap assignments and I labeled hardcore wanting ridiculous amounts of realism. You don't have to understand gap assignments to know something doesn't look right.

Let's look at this video on how to stop outside runs.

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=kJudhMfiBpw

Watch the lineman. At the snap, they hit each other and are stone walled. When I watch football on Sundays I see the line flowing in the direction of the run. Defenders trying to fill gaps and force him to the outside, and that doesn't happen in madden.

These guys are recommending using a 335 nickel to stop run plays. I'm not a coach, but that formation has 5 dbs. That's not the kind of players you want in run support. This is a madden fix for a madden problem that realism can do better without the user understanding concepts that deeply.

To add salt to the wound, another game that released 8 years ago did it more realistically, making everything move and look realistic. But EA cant or won't because it has no back of the box value and I'm still an insane hardcore guy that just needs to go play real football.

[BezO]

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

But why risk it? They already have evidence that a majority of sim heads will buy the game no matter what because we have for the past decade. Why risk alienating another group of potential buyers to appease people who will buy the game not matter what?

Pride in their product.

Maximize profits. I can't be the only one that hasn't purchased Madden in 8-9 years.

To make the best/better game. Sounds like there may be competition soon.

But I also don't see it as a risk. Tourney players & cheesers didn't become Madden fans because of exploits. They became fans because Madden has been the most authentic football game 24-25 of it's 27 year existance. The exploits are just the best means to success.

[Big FN Deal]

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

LOL. Thats not even true. Maybe when it comes to people like you and Sage but not most people here. This thread was one of the few times I've seen someone take an actual quote from a Madden dev and use it to justify their anger. ....

The bold made me chuckle because I used to constantly use actual quotes for justification:

Spoiler

I think the level of realism promoted to be intended to be in next-gen Madden by EA/Tiburon exceeds the vague interpretations of your examples. Here is just a few statements made by various developers for next-gen Madden over the years.

David Ortiz- "With the advent of Next-Gen technology and our partnership with the NFL, we are able to bring to life the most realistic professional football experience possible. In Madden NFL 07, you will now be immersed like never before. While you are on the line, you will hear actual NFL players’ voices, celebrating and calling plays while their actions on the field are exactly as they are in a real game. Graphically, we have drastically increased detail of the players and the stadiums. Just as an example, you will now see the individual blades of grass on the field, as it slowly degrades, depending on where the action on the field is occurring. These are just a couple things that would have never been possible without the new hardware. This is an exciting time for the Madden franchise because the hardware is young and as we continue to learn more about it we will continue to make Madden truly the most realistic sports game, ever created." http://www.gamezone.com/editorials/m...z-phil-frazier

Ian Cummings- "The goal at the end of the day is a realistic simulation that gives you the feeling where every play feels dynamic and different with fresh animations and realistic reactions. You guys shouldn't have to worry about what technologies need to be used to get there - you should just know that end goal." http://www.operationsports.com/forum...post2039793213

Phil Frazier- "There are a couple of games that I draw inspiration from. First is within our label – FIFA. They have worked over the years to provide an amazing core football (soccer) experience and that focus has helped them to become the #1 selling sports title on the planet. Their core gameplay engine is amazing and provides an incredibly fun experience each and every year. I hope to be able to provide a core experience as polished as theirs in the coming years as we continue to refine our engine and eliminate problem areas." http://gomadden.com/news/footballgam...features-more/

Cam Weber- "First and foremost, we need to deliver an amazing simulation football gameplay experience on both of our franchises. In other words, our fans want to see fluid, realistic player movement and deep football AI and behaviors on the field. This includes what players are doing between the whistles in the middle of a play, and how they behave in our pre- and post-play moments as well." http://www.operationsports.com/featu...-gm-cam-weber/

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...post2042180703

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...8&postcount=86

in fact doing that indirectly lead to one of my most memorable posts from you:

Spoiler

Look, I dont give a **** about my argument. The game is what it is. You know its not a simulation. They know its not a simulation and no matter how much the devs talk about that being a goal....we all know its BS.

I've been playing this game for 20 plus years. Thats probably 5 or 6 dev teams. I bet I can find articles or posts where each lead developer whether its David Ortiz or Ian or this new team talks about making the game more realistic and sim like....and none of them do it.

So after a while it becomes fool me once, shame on you. When I buy Madden, I know what I'm getting and I know what I'm not getting. I'm not getting accurate penalties. I'm not getting WR/DB interaction. I'm not getting hyper realistic sim stats. I know that in order to make the game even close to a simulation, I have to adjust ratings and slider tweak and it still wont be that close to a sim.

But to complain about them using "simulation" as a marketing tool is silly. We know why they use it and we know that the game is never going to reach that standard for multiple reasons.

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...&postcount=188

To your credit you've been consistent and I'm still consistent also:

Spoiler

I really respect this opinion and what I'll ask is, even if all this is true, is there anything wrong with calling Tiburon to task on those claims and hoping they deliver? I post about Madden more so as a vice, then some agent for change, because I'm passionate about football and football video games, so strictly from a internet forum POV, they're repeated stated goal is a part of the discussion. I want to emphasize "discussion" because that's all any of this is, making points and counterpoints, etc but at the end of the day the game is what it is.

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...&postcount=197

EDIT: (So there's no misunderstanding, my point for quoting the past posts was just showing why I chuckled, we've all had these same type discussions so many times.)

[shaunlmason]

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

I don't doubt that but the feeling can go both ways at times. I mention gap assignments and I labeled hardcore wanting ridiculous amounts of realism. You don't have to understand gap assignments to know something doesn't look right.

Let's look at this video on how to stop outside runs.

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=kJudhMfiBpw

Watch the lineman. At the snap, they hit each other and are stone walled. When I watch football on Sundays I see the line flowing in the direction of the run. Defenders trying to fill gaps and force him to the outside, and that doesn't happen in madden.

These guys are recommending using a 335 nickel to stop run plays. I'm not a coach, but that formation has 5 dbs. That's not the kind of players you want in run support. This is a madden fix for a madden problem that realism can do better without the user understanding concepts that deeply.

To add salt to the wound, another game that released 8 years ago did it more realistically, making everything move and look realistic. But EA cant or won't because it has no back of the box value and I'm still an insane hardcore guy that just needs to go play real football.

I'm with you. This is one of my fundamental frustrations with Madden, in that ratings are what dictates interactions all the time and not actual physics. It wouldn't be bad if the ratings actually were tied to reality, but in real life 205 pound DB's know what's going to happen if they are in the 3-3-5 and 11 personnel is in the huddle. It's unfortunate that F=ma doesn't mean anything sometimes.