Does EASports Plan on Fixing Movement/Locomotion in Madden in Next Generation?

[Valdarez]

Movement is the foundation of football. Every other aspect of the game is built upon it. When Madden made the jump from XBox/PS2 to XBox360/PS3 they overhauled the movement/locomotion of the game, ruining / breaking it in the eyes of many simulation players. With the movement altered, they had to put in a ton hacks / changes to make up for the unrealistic movement. Thus began the decline of the Madden game as a simulation.

Fast forward to 2011 and on the 2012 build, Ian Cummings and crew attempted to truly change the game. They had an internal build with a truly changed/fixed locomotion engine. Unfortunately due to all of the hacks/changes, it wasn't possible/feasible for them to do implement it as they'd have to unravel literally years of code changes.

Now in 2015, from looking at the game footage, it's clear to me they didn't bite the bullet and fix movement/locomotion. Seems this would have been the opportune time to do so, since going from one generation to another was when the problem was created.

It's frustrating seeing better movement in Madden 2006 than what we see/have in Madden 2015, and if I had one item I personally wanted addressed, and I mean truly address not a line like 'we added more footwork animations'. I honestly don't see how this game moves forward from a realism / simulation standpoint when the foundation for it is flawed.

So, on to my question. I haven't been following Madden for nearly three years now, and I'm not up on the news/status/etc. Is there any word on whether they plan on fixing the movement/locomotion engine?

[CM Hooe]

A number of posters have been harping on player movement in the other threads, so assuming you are on the same wavelength of thought as the rest of the dissatisfied-with-Madden contingent then no I don't think you will get what you are looking for in Madden 15.

That said, EA Sports is using new shared tech, branded "IGNITE", across all their sports games starting as of the previous release cycle on all Gen-8 consoles, so if you like the way other EA Sports games move there is certainly potential to see those changes brought over into Madden going forward. That admittedly doesn't help endear to you Madden 15 specifically.

EDIT - if you haven't followed Madden in three years, you have missed (with respect to how players move and interact) the additions of a real-time physics engine which handles collisions between ball-carriers and tacklers, a complete re-do of OL-DL play and OL AI (it's still not all the way there, but it's much better than any previous Madden game), and a piece of tech called "True Step" where a ballcarrier's feet are always considered with respect to his movements (this has not yet been expanded to all players on the field for Madden 15, though apparently it will govern more than just the ball carrier alone? no more specifics were given beyond that).

[Valdarez]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

A number of posters have been harping on player movement in the other threads, so assuming you are on the same wavelength of thought as the rest of the dissatisfied-with-Madden contingent then no I don't think you will get what you are looking for in Madden 15. That said, EA Sports is using new shared tech, branded "IGNITE", across all their sports games starting as of the previous release cycle on all Gen-8 consoles, so if you like the way other EA Sports games move there is certainly potential to see those changes brought over into Madden going forward. That admittedly doesn't help endear to you Madden 15 specifically. EDIT - if you haven't followed Madden in three years, you have missed (with respect to how players move and interact) the additions of a real-time physics engine which handles collisions between ball-carriers and tacklers, a complete re-do of OL-DL play and OL AI (it's still not all the way there, but it's much better than any previous Madden game), and a piece of tech called "True Step" where a ballcarrier's feet are always considered with respect to his movements (this has not yet been expanded to all players on the field for Madden 15, though apparently it will govern more than just the ball carrier alone? no more specifics were given beyond that).

When I say follow, I mean closely follow. i.e. All the news reports, forums, etc. I still am probably more versed than the average gamer, though I'm definitely not up to speed on many of the new features/capabilities.

I saw the True Step tech in 14. It's the primary reason I didn't buy the game. Instead of actually fixing movement/locomotion they just tacked on new animations. From watching the videos, it's pretty clear to me it hasn't been worked / addressed in 15, so no expectations of having it fixed in this release.

I know they've discussed taking a longer term approach to adding features now, things that can carry on over years such as the Infinity Engine and perhaps the Ignite engine (though I'm not up to speed on what that is right now). I was hoping perhaps they had discussed movement/locomotion in an article or at E3 somewhere and goals (long term) of fixing / addressing it? I could nit pick the game all day long, but when I get down to it, this is the primary thing that needs to be fixed/addressed for the game to get back to where it was from a player movement / gamer control feel perspective back in 2006. It's the one thing I look for in game play videos every year when the game is released, so any news on the topic would be welcomed.

[CM Hooe]

Topic closed at OP request.