As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

[aholbert32]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Me personally...I'm not as concerned about animations or mode features. I'm interested in gameplay AI. When I run the ball, I don't want my LT to suddenly get see a phantom bee and start running backwards 10 yards or my LB just stand still as if he's playing Simon Says with my opponent.

Joking aside, things like suction blocking or what the OP is talking about, statue QBs...that doesn't scream animations or a huge budget in mo-caps, gameplay features, etc.. Simply code to define what action the QB should take - maybe (thinking out loud here), a calculation to determine what the probability is that the QB would be hit given the attributes of the defensive line vs. the offensive line at each frame and then bump that against the AWR of the QB to determine IF he should move (and subsequent calculations to determine where). Again, that's my simple mind that I know doesn't answer nor solve the more complicated code within Madden.

That's not millions of dollars worth of a budget but I'm sure would constitute an investment of time for EA's current programmers - or more additional workforce. Either way...I do agree...there is a cost involved that EA would have to include in scope when mapping out the next year's iteration and vision as it's likely not a quick fix like most here think it is.

Thats millions of dollars though. Lets say they hired 10 programmers to work on cleaning up Madden's code. The lowest level software engineer at EA makes around 80k. The next level up makes about 90k. Now with benefits like health insurance, EA probably pays 100k per programmer.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Ele...ries-E1628.htm

So just for those 10 programmers, we are at 1 million in additional salary. Now some things dont require new animations like the statue AI but something like eliminating all suction block occurrences could require new OL/DL interactions and Mo Cap time.

[bucky60]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

We (Sim) have the ability to have the game tuned to reflect our desires dealing with concerns such as the OP, but if we keep coming at them via the same manner/tone thus far, very little is going to get accomplished to our liking.

Deuce's write up is the perfect example of the type of structured feedback that catches their eyes.

If we just directed our focus towards helping each other present our issues/ideal fixes in the similiar manner, so much would get done to the game on our behalf, so much faster.

There has been constructive feedback from here for over a decade. In depth feedback. We ended up with CCM (now CFM).

[SyncereBlackout]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

There has been constructive feedback from here for over a decade. In depth feedback. We ended up with CCM (now CFM).

What I haven't seen is a breakout of the animations or pocket traits we expect. Not to suggest that's your fault, but the thread got off track early and turned into the same ol jets

For example, what I've been able to glean is that we want:
A give up sack (fetal position for pocket qbs)
Step up in pocket or oscillating (pocket movement) for aware qbs
Statue (the oblivious qb)
Scramble/roll out but keep your eyes downfield (mariota)
And a scrambling qb - pat lemon


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[bad_philanthropy]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Thats millions of dollars though. Lets say they hired 10 programmers to work on cleaning up Madden's code. The lowest level software engineer at EA makes around 80k. The next level up makes about 90k. Now with benefits like health insurance, EA probably pays 100k per programmer.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Ele...ries-E1628.htm

So just for those 10 programmers, we are at 1 million in additional salary. Now some things dont require new animations like the statue AI but something like eliminating all suction block occurrences could require new OL/DL interactions and Mo Cap time.

These are all great points about the cost of redevelopment.

There isn't an incentive right now to take on the risk and cost of developing a brand new football game.

It would be very expensive and the payoff isn't even guaranteed. You might end up with a very expensive prototype that doesn't work well and to further get it up to speed would mean more of a money pit.

[infemous]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Yup, I totally agree because the sim style gameplay audience is heterogeneous. You got true "sim heads" who will not only want to play by sim rules but also play sim by not trying to exploit weaknesses of the game engine. You got more casual people who want to play by authentic NFL rules but will want a little more laid-back experience. Then you got people who have a stick-skill driven gameplay style that is closer to the competitive gaming style but they will want to have injuries, penalties, ratings-effects, etc that you don't get in the competitive gaming mode.

I feel like that lack in homogeneity (relative to the target audiences of the other two styles) will make the sim style the most difficult of the three to balance for EA.

strongly disagree.

The first thing that attracts people to Madden is that it is a football game.

cheesers, sim heads and everything in between play Madden because they love football.

All Madden has to do is dedicate themselves to accurately representing what happens on Sundays.

This means that creating an actual pocket, with dynamic offensive line and defensive line animations, realistic DBs and coverages, a game grounded in physics and reality is what EVERYONE wants.

No one wants to be able to truck 300lbs DLmen with Tavon Austin.

The lack of homogeneity in the Madden community is a problem caused by Madden games being ****. Some people have more of a tolerance for unrealistic things than others, and some will exploit it because they are merely playing a game.

If the game is constantly striving to be as accurate to the real NFL as possible (with a base that allows it to) then no one will complain. Give players the options to then tweak the game how they want off of a base that accurately represents the NFL.

Currently the game fails in these respects monumentally.

The game needs to be overhauled and unfortunately it won't for a very long time unless a competitor comes and makes them do so.

FIFA was the dominant football game for years, until PES came along and wiped the floor with it. FIFA then went back to the drawing board and completely overhauled its animation system, the physics, everything, and slowly but surely have created a behemoth that PES is only now starting to be able to challenge.

Madden has such a splintered fan base because while everyone wants to play an NFL game, there is only one option and it fails at the base level of accurately representing what the NFL is like - this is inclusive of gameplay, presentation elements, game modes, everything.

[infemous]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Thats millions of dollars though. Lets say they hired 10 programmers to work on cleaning up Madden's code. The lowest level software engineer at EA makes around 80k. The next level up makes about 90k. Now with benefits like health insurance, EA probably pays 100k per programmer.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Ele...ries-E1628.htm

So just for those 10 programmers, we are at 1 million in additional salary. Now some things dont require new animations like the statue AI but something like eliminating all suction block occurrences could require new OL/DL interactions and Mo Cap time.

Personally I think they should outsource... if EA are big nasty capitalists that want to squash all competition by buying exclusive licenses.. they should be effective nasty capitalists and make a studio in a place with free healthcare, with cheaper rent, with younger staff that don't demand as much pay etc. etc.

[mykelmosinee]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

strongly disagree.

The first thing that attracts people to Madden is that it is a football game.

cheesers, sim heads and everything in between play Madden because they love football.

All Madden has to do is dedicate themselves to accurately representing what happens on Sundays.

This means that creating an actual pocket, with dynamic offensive line and defensive line animations, realistic DBs and coverages, a game grounded in physics and reality is what EVERYONE wants.

No one wants to be able to truck 300lbs DLmen with Tavon Austin.

The lack of homogeneity in the Madden community is a problem caused by Madden games being ****. Some people have more of a tolerance for unrealistic things than others, and some will exploit it because they are merely playing a game.

If the game is constantly striving to be as accurate to the real NFL as possible (with a base that allows it to) then no one will complain. Give players the options to then tweak the game how they want off of a base that accurately represents the NFL.

Currently the game fails in these respects monumentally.

The game needs to be overhauled and unfortunately it won't for a very long time unless a competitor comes and makes them do so.

FIFA was the dominant football game for years, until PES came along and wiped the floor with it. FIFA then went back to the drawing board and completely overhauled its animation system, the physics, everything, and slowly but surely have created a behemoth that PES is only now starting to be able to challenge.

Madden has such a splintered fan base because while everyone wants to play an NFL game, there is only one option and it fails at the base level of accurately representing what the NFL is like - this is inclusive of gameplay, presentation elements, game modes, everything.

Yes, THIS.
Anyone suggesting EA just isn't aware of what we want, or we have to be more organized with our wishlist...that is rubbish.
They've read, heard, and seen for well over a freaking DECADE what we want, what we perceive the problems to be, and on and on.
OUR desires simply DON'T FIT with their plan, which is to get every human being on God's green earth buying the game by making it dumbed down to the point that it no longer emulates what we see on Sunday.
My love, my passion is NOT for Madden football...it's for NFL football, and their game has been lacking in so many aspects for so long now, I've lost hope that it'll ever change.
The Longshot addition perfectly illustrates my point. What is the purpose of all these resources being put into what basically sounds like an interactive story of a premodeled character who may or may not annoy the living **** out of me. Lol
And the frosting on the cake is we DON'T EVEN PLAY 1 NFL GAME ON THE FREAKING STORY!!
Seriously....WHO had this on their wishlist?? Please tell me their name so I can pay them a visit and bust their kneecaps. ( Yes, I'm joking and being sarcastic)
But, really, I'm at a loss to understand what they're doing anymore...so apparently, none of it is geared toward people like me, so I guess everyone who feels as I do are supposed to just walk away.
The exclusive license was the death toll for video game football as we knew it. A choice (besides buy or go with nothing) sure would be nice.

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[deu22ces]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Thats millions of dollars though. Lets say they hired 10 programmers to work on cleaning up Madden's code. The lowest level software engineer at EA makes around 80k. The next level up makes about 90k. Now with benefits like health insurance, EA probably pays 100k per programmer.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Ele...ries-E1628.htm

So just for those 10 programmers, we are at 1 million in additional salary. Now some things dont require new animations like the statue AI but something like eliminating all suction block occurrences could require new OL/DL interactions and Mo Cap time.

These are all great points about the cost of redevelopment.

There isn't an incentive right now to take on the risk and cost of developing a brand new football game.

It would be very expensive and the payoff isn't even guaranteed. You might end up with a very expensive prototype that doesn't work well and to further get it up to speed would mean more of a money pit.

I understand the cost analysis component to this but let me ask you guys this: If they don't re-do this thing from scratch, what is the future of this game? How is it going to advance beyond where it's stuck now keeping the same technological limitations in place?

I see this current version being simply once again ported over to the next round of consoles and the next and so on. So in keeping the status quo here, this is what Madden will be for the rest of its life cycle. Is that what we really want?

How much $$ and human 'resources' has EA spent to keep patching and putting band aid fixes on this thing? The $100K costing programmers are spending extremely valuable time constantly fixing what was there and not innovating enough towards what could and should be there.

QB's are standing like statues now b/c some old code got in the way of something else and when they changed something else, QB pocket awareness became 'bugged'. It's a perpetual cycle of tinkering madness.

[timhere1970]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Personally I think they should outsource... if EA are big nasty capitalists that want to squash all competition by buying exclusive licenses.. they should be effective nasty capitalists and make a studio in a place with free healthcare, with cheaper rent, with younger staff that don't demand as much pay etc. etc.

Having exclusive agreements and the legal recourse to squash competition is not capitalist. It is anti capitalist. Someone posted that a million dollar investment in programmers is prohibitive. That is only because they can prevent anyone else from making a game. A million dollars is nothing to ea. At 60 bucks a game that 16,000 units. If 2k was coming out with a nfl game next year they would be willing to sink 50 million into the game. They don't listen to their most passionate customers for that reason. They don't have to. If nfl video games were operating under a capitalist system they would go out of business not listening to their customers. Remember the nfl is not capitalist either. It operates on a socialism for billionaires system.

[roadman]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

So, umm yeah, let's hope the CPU QB Play is patched up soon after the game comes out.

[Sheba2011]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Thats millions of dollars though. Lets say they hired 10 programmers to work on cleaning up Madden's code. The lowest level software engineer at EA makes around 80k. The next level up makes about 90k. Now with benefits like health insurance, EA probably pays 100k per programmer.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Ele...ries-E1628.htm

So just for those 10 programmers, we are at 1 million in additional salary. Now some things dont require new animations like the statue AI but something like eliminating all suction block occurrences could require new OL/DL interactions and Mo Cap time.

I saw a really good interview with Todd Howard of Bethesda once where he hit on this exact topic. Someone asked him why they have a relatively small team (around 100 people) working on games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls and he hit on many of the same points you did and a few additional ones. He also said it's actually a lot harder and a lot less productive to have more people working on the same game. Some aspects of their game it is impossible to have more than a few people working on it, others it just doesn't make financial sense to do it. People often think it's as easy to just hire someone else, in a perfect world that would happen, in the real world it's never that simple.

[callmetaternuts]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Let's do more than hope. What do we want to see?

We want to see classic pocket passers (Brady, Big Ben, Brees, Eli etc) stay in pocket, but slide, move around, "feel" the pressure and react. We want the in between guys, (Tannehill, Jameis) to do the same but to get outside the pocket and run when necessary. And we want the true mobile guys (Wilson, Mariota, Cam) to take off and punish us with legs.

Its more than just running or moving, its knowing when to do that.

And this is all coupled with accuracy. As any of the above move, whether its run, slide, or roll out, accuracy has to go down. And for that to mean anything, there has to be SIGNIFICANT difference in accuracy between elites and scrubs.

Someone (rudy?) posted a video last year of launch and post-patch QB accuracy. They ran slants and the accuracy was realistic, the patch messed it up. In order for anything to matter, we need Brady and those guys to be very accurate but still bounce some passes. We need Siemian, Bortles and others to airmail throws and barely hit 60% of passes.

[aholbert32]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

Personally I think they should outsource... if EA are big nasty capitalists that want to squash all competition by buying exclusive licenses.. they should be effective nasty capitalists and make a studio in a place with free healthcare, with cheaper rent, with younger staff that don't demand as much pay etc. etc.

I'm not good with that. I'm not so desperate to get a better football game that I would encourage EA to fire American workers and outsource American jobs.

[aholbert32]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

I understand the cost analysis component to this but let me ask you guys this: If they don't re-do this thing from scratch, what is the future of this game? How is it going to advance beyond where it's stuck now keeping the same technological limitations in place?

I see this current version being simply once again ported over to the next round of consoles and the next and so on. So in keeping the status quo here, this is what Madden will be for the rest of its life cycle. Is that what we really want?

How much $$ and human 'resources' has EA spent to keep patching and putting band aid fixes on this thing? The $100K costing programmers are spending extremely valuable time constantly fixing what was there and not innovating enough towards what could and should be there.

QB's are standing like statues now b/c some old code got in the way of something else and when they changed something else, QB pocket awareness became 'bugged'. It's a perpetual cycle of tinkering madness.

They will continue to sell millions of games a year.

This is where you have to be realistic about the issues. I hate seeing things like Statue QB AI but that doesnt effect online players at all. It doesnt even seriously effect every offline player. There are plenty of people who see videos where the QB has 30 yds to run and it takes a sack and they just shrug and keep playing the game.

It matters to this community because we are quicker to notice issues like this and more insistent that the game play as a true simulation. ****, I'm a hardcore player and while this issue annoys me...its not a game killer for me. I can work around it like I have tons of other Madden issues.

The biggest thing is this community is vocal but we dont ever do ****. We complain on Twitter. We complain on OS. We complain on Reddit.....and then we buy the game on release day. **** many of us buy the game directly from EA digitally (which is a bigger profit).

I dont blame Rex and the EA higher ups for primarily only focusing on fixes that affect every type of player. They arent held accountable by this community so why should they cater to it.

[deu22ces]

Re: As a community we cannot accept the current CPU QB play.

They will continue to sell millions of games a year.

This is where you have to be realistic about the issues. I hate seeing things like Statue QB AI but that doesnt effect online players at all. It doesnt even seriously effect every offline player. There are plenty of people who see videos where the QB has 30 yds to run and it takes a sack and they just shrug and keep playing the game.

It matters to this community because we are quicker to notice issues like this and more insistent that the game play as a true simulation. ****, I'm a hardcore player and while this issue annoys me...its not a game killer for me. I can work around it like I have tons of other Madden issues.

The biggest thing is this community is vocal but we dont ever do ****. We complain on Twitter. We complain on OS. We complain on Reddit.....and then we buy the game on release day. **** many of us buy the game directly from EA digitally (which is a bigger profit).

I dont blame Rex and the EA higher ups for primarily only focusing on fixes that affect every type of player. They arent held accountable by this community so why should they cater to it.

Understood. But what about the 2nd question? Where can this game go if the same limitations persist? I'm actually very interested in what you think there b/c you've said that not only do you work on a sports game, but also for EA. At some point, everyone, online or offline, whatever play style, will get tired of the same game over and over.