The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

[cowboy_kmoney]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

Ian it sounds like this years game will be a major step in creating the best madden to date,So keep the news coming and best of luck to you and the crew.

[DaveDQ]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

There are several creative flavors you could go with. After a play, you could have a QB look to the sidelines as if he's trying to listen to his coach. You could have receivers and QBs make contact during and after plays. Defensively, you could have LBs eye the RB. It's really endless.

This is an exciting feature. Not jus tin sports games, but games in general, this feature add much depth and life to characters.

[johnprestonevans]

This looks like a great new feature that will greatly add to the realism of Madden. Thats what it's all about. : )
I too have experienced the frustrating mind-reading interception by the defence. I hope this feature will not just be cosmetic, but will also affect the interceptions and reactions of the player who's observering/not observing the ball.
I would like to see this technology applied not only to players on the field, but to the sidelines at well. This could help liven up the atmosphere with fewer canned animations from coaches and subs. Keep up the great work!

[RGiles36]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

I'm curious to see how this looks in real gameplay. I'm anxious to see the QB going through his progressions. Hopefully this translates to QB's having to actually look to where they're throwing and move their shoulders as such.

[The Sim God]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

i posted this back on page 14 and would like an answer from the ea guys.

WOW! What a way to end a half!!!!

Well Madden (and NFL) fans, as promised, we’re bringing you a sneak peek at Madden NFL 10 by releasing a feature that you’ll see in this year’s game! Remember, it’s only a mere 6½ months away!

We have a big goal as a team this year - to relay out as much information as possible. Hopefully in the process we can make the development of this game extremely transparent so you all, the fans, can get an inside look at how the game gets made. In doing so, we’ll often be discussing new features with you as they are finalized and polished, meaning that each and every one of you out there can give suggestions directly to us to try and shape the game towards your preferred direction. Madden NFL as a Franchise has one overarching goal it has to reach every year, and that is to be the best sports game in history. I’m going to leave the discussion to you all on whether we’ve reached that goal in year’s past, but I do know that now we all get to be a part of making it happen this year. You are no longer posting to forums in vain!

So as we sat down as a team and tried to decide what information we wanted to release first, it really made the most sense to focus more on the technical details for the first part of the year. This is for a couple of reasons – one, the majority of the people looking into Madden info right now are most likely going to be the more hardcore fans (who appreciate the details), and two, we obviously want to save more of the big name feature stuff for later in the year closer to launch time. You should see this theme continue throughout the first few months of our updates. Another reason we really like this approach is that some updates (this post included) are purely about new technology that actually hasn’t been fully fleshed out in the game yet. So the hope is that we can take feedback from the community in regards to maybe new ideas they’d like to see us implement with the new technology. This is one of the most exciting aspects for us as a team in regards to our interaction with the community throughout the development cycle for Madden NFL 10.

Enough talk – on to the new stuff!

Let me tell you a story of playing Madden NFL.
It’s 3rd and 10, and I’m down 14-7 against my buddy over Xbox LIVE. He’s a pretty conservative player, so I know he’ll sit his safeties back a bit and stay with man coverage on my outside receivers. I’m going to try and send my slot WR on a deep fly to clear the safety out, and hit my #1 WR on a Deep In. I saw Kurt Warner and the Rams with their "greatest show on turf" make this look easy week after week in the late 90’s! So I take the snap and analyze the situation quickly – no blitz, and the safeties are dropping out…money. I wish I was better at going through progressions, but I’m not - I’m pretty much watching my #1 WR all the way. He’s just coming out of his break on the deep in, and he’s got at least 2 steps on the defender trailing him in man coverage. I fire it in there, a perfect bullet pass where I think only he can catch it. Right before the ball gets to him the DB turns around and in one quick motion steps in front, picks it off, and is headed back the other way. HUH? THE DB NEVER EVEN SAW THE BALL!!

Ever happened to you? Did your controller survive to tell the tale?

It is my pleasure to introduce Madden’s newest piece of technology, one that is also shared within many of the EA SPORTS games, called "Procedural Awareness". What is it? We’ll you’ve likely heard of “head tracking” with IK. If you haven’t, it’s a way to turn the players head around to face a target dynamically, without the need for canned animations. Well, think of Procedural Awareness (PA for short) as the “next-gen” version of head tracking. Since it is so early in the year, unfortunately I can’t show you any videos of it running in the game, but I can show some “tech demos” of sorts:

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This is definitely pretty cool stuff…we can tune how fast the player switches between different targets, and then also how he behaves when he locks on and follows a target. You can already envision this being used by DB’s and WR’s when the ball is thrown, QB’s as they go through progressions, safeties as they drop in zone, and obviously many more cases. In terms of visual fidelity, PA is also a major step up from any other normal IK head tracking solution. We’re in the middle of some changes so I would rather not show you our player model’s face in the tool (his jaw is missing…it isn’t pretty ), but I can show a video of PA running in the tool with an NBA Live player model – Dwayne Wade. This shows off how the eyes track along with the head, the ability to dynamically “blink”, some really smooth blending between different targets, and even how the spine and shoulders can be “pulled” to follow the eyes/head as well:

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There’s one last cool feature within PA, and that is a concept of “procedural attitudes”. An attitude is basically a collection of a bunch of different variables that alter the way a player “looks” while he is head tracking. So for the above videos, you basically saw just one attitude – “alert”. But PA allows you to not only just tweak how quickly he reacts and the amount of time it takes him to switch targets and such, but you can also toy with a big collection of variables for players to actually express emotion with their head and eye movement. A big problem in many sports games is making characters feel “alive” – and it applies to Madden often times as soon as the play is over. You don’t want to see a bunch of zombies walking around, but you also don’t want to spend months writing code and adding animations to make players act a little more lifelike (especially when there are so many features we need to attack to more realistically emulate football gameplay). Here’s where PA helps tremendously…it allows artists to create subtle emotional attitudes for players without the need of an engineer. Again there is ZERO canned animation at work here…it’s all totally dynamic and can be created by an animator adjusting a few sliders in the tool. Below is an example video of a few attitudes:

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Alright, so what’s Procedural Awareness in a nutshell?
“The ability to procedurally manipulate the spine, neck, head, and eyes on a player in the game; and also add layers of emotion/attitudes on top of those manipulations”.

So the videos really just showcase the technology…not how we implement that technology in our game to actually change the way the game is played. My story above about getting picked off by a DB that can’t see the ball? Well now we can make a DB track the ball realistically and we’ll make sure that he has a true line of sight before he can make a play on the ball. And if/when he gets burned, he can dynamically look down and shake his head with zero new animations or engineering support.

A very exciting thing for our team while posting this is that we are not using PA’s full functionality in the game right now. We have the standard “alert” attitude hooked up for 1) DB’s and WR’s to track the ball, 2) defenders to track the ballcarrier, and 3) the ballcarrier to track threats. So I'm passing it off to you guys:

- Where else would you like to see PA active?
- Are there any new attitudes would you like to see?
- Do you have any suggestions on the best area you think we should actually use the attitudes that we’ve created?

We will follow up in a few months (once we’re actually showing videos of the game) and show what all we changed/added thanks to community feedback. I personally can’t wait!

Enjoy the rest of the Super Bowl!

- Ian Cummings
Lead Designer, Madden NFL 10

all of this sounds good, but here is the thing

say a db is AI contrrolled.....he cant see the ball
so when i "click in" and control the db...can i still swat/int the ball even though my db's head is NOT facing the ball?

example....a fly route to plax.......i have a step or 2 on the db...eli throws the rock and i "click in" to the db(asante samuel)....can i swat the ball/put my hand up even though i never turned around as im just running to catch up to the wr?

[hazy101]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

Man, this is a harsh crowd! You guys have your work cut out for you! I agree with most of these posts though. If you are going to start promising us things, you really need to deliver or you are going to see alot of angry people!
Anyway, it sounds like you guys are heading in the right direction! Keep up the good worked and keep us informed as we are the ones who make this game "great" or "crap".

[callmetaternuts]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

Ian (and EA), thats some great news! Awareness, line of sight, etc are some things that seem small (ball/head tracking) but have a HUGE impact on the game play. This sounds great and i'm looking forward to see how its implemented. Keep up the good work!

[Pete1210]

I'm glad you recognize the problem with INT's and are working to correct that.
I don't see the need to focus on facial expressions in a football game.

[UpTheIrons]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

- Where else would you like to see PA active?
- Are there any new attitudes would you like to see?
- Do you have any suggestions on the best area you think we should actually use the attitudes that we’ve created?

Thanks, Ian and team -- we're counting on you.

Replies:
1) It seems PA can be VERY useful when linebackers and some safeties are trying to figure out if the ball has been handed off, or if it's playaction. If so, this can dramatically improve the ability to actually use playaction, screens, etc. It can also provide more realistic defensive reactions (some good, some "guesses" which may be good or bad).

2 & 3) I wonder if the new attitudes can be tied to penalties? Example -- If a LT has a 99 aggressiveness and they get burned for a sack, maybe that triggers the potential for an unsportsmanlike? Or a future clipping? Perhaps another OL has a low "discipline" or "IQ" rating and a low attitude can lead to more false starts? Or if a DB gets burned deep and they have a high aggressiveness, perhaps they're more prone to draw pass interference? Etc. It'd be great to make penalties more realistic. (As I'm sure you're aware, even when they sliders are all jacked up to 100, you rarely see any other penalty than holding and a few false starts.)

- Ironz

[carnalnirvana]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

this looks great and it shows you guys in the dev team work hard.

its early BUT i cant help but feel that ,thats not what most gamers want to see.

i would have liked to see team sliders or the ability to change the team i play with in a franchise during the franchise...

I REALLY HOpE THE TEAM DOes NOT FORGET its the small things that need addressing

BUT like i said nice work and thanks for dropping by to share this with us

[swiftychampleone]

The celebration that occured at the end of Super Bowl should be in the game as well. Have the team coach walk through the players as they slap the trophy like Joe Namath did last night.

I like the idea of player joking and talking in the huddle. I also want to see pre-game emotions as well. Like players talking and messing around with players on the opposing team. Handshakes and fistbumps at the coin toss. If you have any problems, please see NFL 2K5 (the last great football game) as a reference.

[swiftychampleone]

I'm glad you recognize the problem with INT's and are working to correct that.
I don't see the need to focus on facial expressions in a football game.

Huh? I say WHY NOT? It's an nice touch that makes the game better, IMO. We really need to cut the staleness out of Madden in the best way possible.

[The Sim God]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

IAN

run commit & pass commit SHOULD BE eliminated.

awareness should be the only thing that matters for run/pass commit.

[BezO]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

Good stuff!

So I'm passing it off to you guys:

- Where else would you like to see PA active?

• When WRs, RBs & TEs are running routes, they shouldn't look for the ball until after the last break in their route. So if the ball is thrown early, he doesn't react. Even if a user takes control, the user shouldn't have time to recover and get to the ball.
  Also, even when the ball is not thrown to them, route runners should look back at the QB after that last break in their route.
• When blocking, linemen, TEs & RBs should look for defenders and shouldn't attempt to block defenders they can't see. Linemen without an immediate threat should always be looking for someone to block, and should go help someone after a second or 2.
• A ball carrier should be aware of potential tacklers.
• A QB should not only go through his progressions, but he should(or shouldn't) be aware of pressure. If someone is coming from the backside and the QB doesn't turn his head to see, he shouldn't react.
• DBs, LBs & d-linemen(zone blitz) should be looking for WRs in their zone & at the QB.

I hop each player's PA with be ratings based.

I know you all feel most users want immediate control, so consider giving the swat button dual actions like you to for stiff arm/switch hands. The swat button could trigger a swat if the DB is aware of the ball, but would trigger a "look for ball animation" when he's not yet aware of the ball. And the same for pick attempts.

- Are there any new attitudes would you like do see?

Intensity, disappointment, elation, pain, determination, surprised...

- Do you have any suggestions on the best area you think we should actually use the attitudes that we’ve created?

Before/during most actions... tackle attempts, swat/pick attempts, catch attempts, jukes/spins/stiff arms/breaking tackles, persuit... basically every action should have an attitude attached.

[vabeachboy19]

Re: The First Official Feature For Madden NFL 10!

Ian,

This could be a great feature. Heres the 2 main things that need to happen in my opinion to make this great.

1. DB Awareness- My first suggestion is that the 'strafe' button should basically be changed to a 'LOOK' button on defense. Now anyone that has played madden the past few years know that the strafe is over powered and contributes to maybe 70% of interceptions. And the main trouble with this is that a defender can be running full speed with his back to the ball and once the strafe button is pressed the db will immediately turn around(with no penalty) and be able to jump straight up in the air.THIS IS JUST NOT POSSIBLE IN REAL LIFE and frustrates me most about madden. Now with my suggestion, if a db is running down field with his back to the ball, once the "LOOK" button is triggered the db will turn his head and attempt to find the ball.Now once he finds the ball he will be able to make a play but most importantly the user must release the turbo and actually slow the defender up before attempting to JUMP. So basically it is momentum bassed. If the defender is at full sprint he should only be able to raise his arm/arms, dive to try to deflect, or maybe a small bound depending on rating. Now if you are able to get into position and release the turbo and slow the defender to a near stop, now the defender should be able to GATHER HISELF AND JUMP!. This would DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE THE INTERCEPTION PROBLEM IN MADDEN/ EA SPORTS FOOTBALL.

2. QB Awareness- First let me say the qb head tracking looks great in the small video shown. Now lets talk about qb 'performance' based on head tracking. The main thing that needs to happen here is that if Mcnabb is looking at Curtis on a fly down the left side of the field and the user decides to dump it off to Westbrook in the right flats..once the user presses the button to throw to Westbrook, Mcnabb should have to TURN HIS HEAD TO FIND WESTBROOK IN THE RIGHT FLATS, TURN HIS SHOULDERS AND ATTEMPT TO STEP AND THROW WITH PROPER FOOTWORK!! this is HUGE in my opinion and something that madden is lacking and would make the passing experience great. Now to get a little deeper, if the qb is feeling pressure and has good awareness, then the qb should 'rush' the pass (ie, not step and throw) which would result in side arms, throwing off back foot, throws without stepping to receiver; which should create loose spirals, over/under throws, and a dramatic reduction in accuracy(of coarse depending on qb ability)

I know this is a long read but I PROMISE if these things are included in Madden 2010 us TRUE football Sim fans will be satisfied.