Arcade vs Sim - The 1 thing I'll never understand

[FaceMask]

Quote: Originally Posted by Smoke6

Not true, but the Freestyle crowd really drag this game down more and more tho, tired of hopping online playing FOOTBALL only to get beat by someone who figured out exactly how the AI reacts to certain plays and routes like the back of their hand. Just a group of guys who got tired of losing and instead of hitting the lab to run a much more coordinated offense, they want to score 50+ points a game in the matter of 2 quarters or DC glitch their way out and create another user name.

If it weren't true, you wouldn't be having the problem you described. Minority groups who don't buy much have no power to change a company's product direction, but the non-sim are in fact buying and buying big. They're the great majority and therefore they have the biggest voice, and by connection, the biggest influence.

The problem you state is commonplace which goes along with the concept of who this games core market is/has been and who is buying it most. I think Tiburon has made efforts to be more sim, but for whatever reason they just can't connect it, so they are in the middle ground doing neither sim or non-sim well.

The average person who plays Madden knows little about football or its history and Madden is designed to be accessible to that majority, and it is a majority. Last gen, Tiburon spent years fooling around with accessibility for that reason exactly; to make the game more relatable to people who lack basic football knowledge (remember the Madden 09 commercials?). That hasn't really changed, they're just more subtle about it now.

If games like APF taught us anything, it's that strong gameplay and authentic football is not the sole key to profitability, because that game had it and nobody bought it. There has to be something more. You have to appeal to more than just the tiny sim base. You have to appeal to the majority, and like it or not Madden has been able to do that for a long time, and even with their sales having a slide they've still been able to hang on to the fantasy end with Ultimate Team and make good money. The video games that were sim and still appealed to both sides were superior enough that they couldn't be ignored by either side and were accepted by both, but Madden is not that good of a product to do that. So while it remains in the middle, it's going to appeal more to the non-sim because the sim are too strict and purest-minded to accept the middle ground the way the non-sim has.

I wish sim was bigger but it just isn't. And honestly, even if it were, I have no confidence that Tiburon could utilize it. A lot of things they've done and said over the years indicates that they don't fully understand what needs to be done or they do understand and simply can't execute it, which is fine it's just that their advertising leads us to believe they can.

[IlluminatusUIUC]

As was noted in the first post and the somewhat glossed over, there's two competing masters here: trying to achieve realistic results on a per-play basis vs. trying to keep the games from taking hours to finish. I don't know that there is a middle ground to find here. If you had every play work as it should in the NFL, but left the game on 6 minute quarters, you'd have games ending 7-3 all the time. So they try to pack all the big plays of a 60 "minute" game into a 24 "minute" game and the result is unrealistically bad defense.

[N51_rob]

Quote: Originally Posted by IlluminatusUIUC

As was noted in the first post and the somewhat glossed over, there's two competing masters here: trying to achieve realistic results on a per-play basis vs. trying to keep the games from taking hours to finish. I don't know that there is a middle ground to find here. If you had every play work as it should in the NFL, but left the game on 6 minute quarters, you'd have games ending 7-3 all the time. So they try to pack all the big plays of a 60 "minute" game into a 24 "minute" game and the result is unrealistically bad defense.

Ehh, with the advent of the accel clock this should not be an issue. Most NFL teams don't snap the ball until they play clock is inside of 10 seconds. The QB to Coach communicator doesn't even shut off until there are 15 seconds left. So you could play the game with 15 minute quarters and have the accel clock take time down to 12 seconds and still run almost as many plays as the nfl and even with accel clock off, playing at 8 minute quarters can get you a similar number of plays if the people get to the line and snap the ball quickly.

[IlluminatusUIUC]

Quote: Originally Posted by N51_rob

Ehh, with the advent of the accel clock this should not be an issue. Most NFL teams don't snap the ball until they play clock is inside of 10 seconds. The QB to Coach communicator doesn't even shut off until there are 15 seconds left. So you could play the game with 15 minute quarters and have the accel clock take time down to 12 seconds and still run almost as many plays as the nfl and even with accel clock off, playing at 8 minute quarters can get you a similar number of plays if the people get to the line and snap the ball quickly.

It absolutely is an issue. NFL games are running 120+ snaps. Even without the commercial breaks, halftime, etc of a real game that's a lot of plays. If each play from snap through play, play call, reset, to next snap takes 30 (real life) seconds that's already at an hour long. And that's at a bare minimum of plays per game, with no pauses or any other delays. Many people cannot commit an hour + to a single game session, especially in multiplayer. Mid-game saves partially alleviate this issue but don't eliminate it.

[CRIP4LIFE]

Quote: Originally Posted by Robrain

They need to come back with distinct arcade-style football games that allow for Madden to be a more "reaslitic" experience. If the NFL doesn't want their brand on games that were previously a lot of fun, but more off the wall (less rules, more ridiculous), games like NFL Street and NFL Blitz, then EA should just make Madden the "realistic" football game, and spin off a new brand for the arcade-style one. The old Sega Genesis had a great football game called Mutant League Football. If EA was to purchase the rights to that franchise, it would be something like a modern mix between NFL Blitz/Street and Mortal Kombat. I'd be more than willing to buy both games, since they're basically different types of entertainment, even if they're both takes on the game of football. Me and my friends still play NFL Street once in awhile because it's just a much different beast than Madden is. We play Madden too, but the games are different enough that each satisfies it's own type of "fun", depending on what you're looking for. Free from the shackles of the NFL, EA would be able to re-introduce the hard hits that we all loved, on a completely new degree with a franchise like Mutant League Football. Celebrations, taunts, the works. Everything we want Madden to be, that the NFL won't allow it to be because of their "image".

EA already owns mutant league football as they developed and published it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutant_League_Football

however, no... the answer is not EA making MORE football games. we need EA making LESS football games, not more. 1 is already too much.

[Robrain]

Quote: Originally Posted by CRIP4LIFE

EA already owns mutant league football as they developed and published it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutant_League_Football however, no... the answer is not EA making MORE football games. we need EA making LESS football games, not more. 1 is already too much.

I totally forgot about that when I typed that post. Yeah, one of the reasons EA hasn't revived that franchise is probably because it would cannibalize Madden sales.

It would be more ideal for a separate entity to develop the Mutant-League-Football-esque game. The problem we have now stems from EA signing the exclusive deal with the NFL. By not having ties to the NFL, the Mutant-League-Football-esque franchise would enable said competing company to move into the football videogame market.

When there's competition, consumers usually win.

[ggsimmonds]

Quote: Originally Posted by dghustla

been saying this for years. most other games have a hardcore mode for select portion of their fan base. I don't get why Madden doesn't take this same approach. Playing online I don't see any of the game play changes that were promised expect for "true step". You can still snap and run outside of the pocket on 90% of your plays. You can still drop back 10 yards. I wish EA would add something where the QB slips when he drops back more than 5 steps. BUt mostly the game isn't organic and free flowing enough. During a play the game should feel like Fifa or 2k. Where the players are actually reacting to the movements of players around them. The players are so tethered to assignments that it's easy to master 5 plays and be unstopable as long as you know what route gets open vs which coverage. You can throw the same thing everytime.

SMH

You see the problem with this right?

[Smoke6]

Hopped online to play a bit and get the feel of this game again and what do i get?

Selfmade QB rollout plays throwing accurately across their shoulders every damn time they need to make a big play.

Same play on defense shutting down whatever you throw at it

Biggest one of them all that I have been noticing whenever I play... Psychic AI all over again!!!

I dunno how many times we have expressed our concerns for defender back pedaling the whole route with the WR and when they do turn their backs they immediatley know where the pass was thrown and who it was thrown to without even looking and can make plays like this aswell on the ball which is freak annoying.

I mean, its just a damn game of football and people cant even play it how its supposed to be played. I get wins from them playing like fools most of the time, but its still a pain in the arse to go thru this and what once was fixed seems so broken now after patches and whatnot.