How online players have killed Madden.

[ODogg]

Just to clarify: the answer isn't to disallow people to go for it in the first quarter when it's 4th and 25 from their own 5 yard line.

The answer is to never be involved in a game with an idiot like that to begin with..


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[MyxGoDxIsxGrEaTeR]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

Actually only one post right after that I said I didn't like it and it needs resolved but trying to take away people's freedom to play the game however they want, no matter how stupid is not the right way to go. We simply need tools online to allow us to align ourselves with people who choose to play the game in a realistic fashion and avoid those who don't.. I posted a systems page or two back detailing how to do just that but it went largely ignored. Probably because it's easy to discuss a problem and complain about it than it is to actually discuss solutions and how to implement them. Again, just like social issues heh.. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I read your 2nd post. Don't want you to think I ignored it. I actually referenced it in my last paragraph.

When did you compose this "systems" page and what "audience" ignored it? OS, consumers or EA?

I agree with all of what you're saying, but my gripe is with EA seemingly not acknowledging said issues and acting as if these exploits don't exist. At least acknowledge that the community is being heard. I have beef with a lot of what Bungie does, but I will never say that they don't provide a platform or opportunity to directly speak to them about issues with their games (Halo back then and Destiny now).

Now whether they adhere or just say "Screw you, we're going to keep doing what we're doing" is different, but I feel many complaints, exploits, are legitimate about this game and there is nowhere to go to directly discuss and share this information amongst the community and more importantly, the developers themselves.

That's the problem.

There is no reason the "walk your players off the field" and "desync" glitches should still work, and there is no reason that the players shouldn't be fumble prone after running hurry up offense for more than 3 plays.

[ODogg]

I agree that those glitches do need fixed ASAP and those are on EA, but I'm talking more about the style of football a lot of the immature people seem to enjoy playing online that tends to ruin sim players like here at OS.

As for what I composed, I meant my post here referring to eliminating or at least co-opting the win-loss record with a point system of rewards and penalties. It's akin to what a lot of racing games employ.

I was disappointed because of no one addressing it.

My main point is we need to start thinking of feasible and practical solutions to this problem versus what a lot of OSers tend to do and that's bitch, complain and attack EA because people abuse their freedoms in Madden..


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[graphster21]

Realistically, the only two viable solutions are 1) Play in a CFM or league with people who agree to play by a set of rules, or 2) Play online and try to make the best of a poor situation.

A big part of the reason that people do stupid stuff online is because the game doesn't punish them for it. The only real way that is going to change is if EA improves the game.

If you look at every other game that has a viable competitive online H2H scene, it's because the game is structured in a way so that people feel rewarded for getting better at the game, and because "getting better at the game" is more or less (with a few exceptions) synonymous with "playing the game the way it should be played." Until EA makes more progress in making that happen, then Madden H2H competitive play will continue to suffer.

In many cases where H2H play is more popular, the game companies themselves are active in patching/balancing the game when they see that certain things are over/under powered or if a major glitch or bug is discovered. Of course, many of these games are also on PC, where the patch process is easier and there are no costs (other than development time) for releasing regular updates (as opposed to the console model, where we generally only get one or two major patches per year). For example, League of Legends, which is arguably the game with the largest online player base and which has incredibly robust ranked ladders and a competitive scene, has released 21 patches in roughly the past calendar year, not to mention several other "hotfix" updates that were released in between patches when "gamebreaking" issues were discovered. Given that sports games are on a yearly cycle, there is no way they will ever release a perfectly balanced game, so the only feasible way to improve things is to move to a system where the game studios can release updates more regularly.

[IlluminatusUIUC]

Quote: Originally Posted by graphster21

Realistically, the only two viable solutions are 1) Play in a CFM or league with people who agree to play by a set of rules, or 2) Play online and try to make the best of a poor situation. A big part of the reason that people do stupid stuff online is because the game doesn't punish them for it. The only real way that is going to change is if EA improves the game. If you look at every other game that has a viable competitive online H2H scene, it's because the game is structured in a way so that people feel rewarded for getting better at the game, and because "getting better at the game" is more or less (with a few exceptions) synonymous with "playing the game the way it should be played." Until EA makes more progress in making that happen, then Madden H2H competitive play will continue to suffer. In many cases where H2H play is more popular, the game companies themselves are active in patching/balancing the game when they see that certain things are over/under powered or if a major glitch or bug is discovered. Of course, many of these games are also on PC, where the patch process is easier and there are no costs (other than development time) for releasing regular updates (as opposed to the console model, where we generally only get one or two major patches per year). For example, League of Legends, which is arguably the game with the largest online player base and which has incredibly robust ranked ladders and a competitive scene, has released 21 patches in roughly the past calendar year, not to mention several other "hotfix" updates that were released in between patches when "gamebreaking" issues were discovered. Given that sports games are on a yearly cycle, there is no way they will ever release a perfectly balanced game, so the only feasible way to improve things is to move to a system where the game studios can release updates more regularly.

The comparison to League of Legends doesn't really work though. League of Legends isn't trying to model a real sport played by real human beings, so it has no need to achieve a "simulation." If something isn't fun or unbalances the game, they can dramatically alter how it works or just remove it entirely. EA doesn't have that luxury, and when they remove something they haven't figured out how to make work or properly balance (squib kicks, wildcat audibles, defensive assignments) there are howls from the fanbase and rightly so.

There's also the problem that a lot of gamers' views of what is realistic football aren't accurate. A Madden user who almost never huddled and threw on 82% of their plays would be slammed as a cheeser, yet that's what New England just did to New York last week.

As I said earlier, when you shorten the quarter lengths but tune the game to have the same levels of offensive results as a game 3x as long, then it makes aggressive strategy the correct play. Imagine if there was a baseball video game where you only played 4 innings but users still expected the same amount of home runs as a full length contest. The game would be slanted towards the batter and things like bunting and playing small ball would be a horrendous idea.

[goillini03]

I guess that is my question. Why does the game have to produce realistic stats? I get that it has to produce a quicker game to get some scoring, but scoring 28 points should not be the end game.

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[graphster21]

Quote: Originally Posted by IlluminatusUIUC

The comparison to League of Legends doesn't really work though. League of Legends isn't trying to model a real sport played by real human beings, so it has no need to achieve a "simulation." If something isn't fun or unbalances the game, they can dramatically alter how it works or just remove it entirely. EA doesn't have that luxury, and when they remove something they haven't figured out how to make work or properly balance (squib kicks, wildcat audibles, defensive assignments) there are howls from the fanbase and rightly so. There's also the problem that a lot of gamers' views of what is realistic football aren't accurate. A Madden user who almost never huddled and threw on 82% of their plays would be slammed as a cheeser, yet that's what New England just did to New York last week. As I said earlier, when you shorten the quarter lengths but tune the game to have the same levels of offensive results as a game 3x as long, then it makes aggressive strategy the correct play. Imagine if there was a baseball video game where you only played 4 innings but users still expected the same amount of home runs as a full length contest. The game would be slanted towards the batter and things like bunting and playing small ball would be a horrendous idea.

You are right that it is inherently harder to balance sports games. I think that is an argument for MORE patches, not fewer. In a model with more patches, EA could incrementally try various solutions (i.e. increase/decrease pass rush, pass coverage, QB accuracy defensive reactions and assignments, etc..., and alter or remove problematic plays) and then monitor what happens and make corrections in a week or two if things weren't working out. With the current system, they basically release the game, start collecting feedback on things that are out of balance, and then more or less get one (sometimes two) chances to fix all of those things at the same time. This puts a lot of pressure on the patches to get things right without much of a chance to monitor or see how it plays out when people start playing H2H, and leaves little opportunity for changes or corrections if things are found or become problematic after the initial round of patches are released, which is compounded by the fact that it there is a lengthy first party approval process that delays the releases of the patches themselves for a few weeks.

In terms of the unconventional stuff, I agree with you, but that also underscores the difficulty of creating a "sim" community to run parallel to the official "ranked online" leaderboards that EA operates. Different people have different conceptions of what kinds of tactics are "sim," and so it will be impossible to come up with a set of guidelines that would work for everyone. We can all agree that certain obvious glitches and exploits should not be used, but beyond that it is not very feasible to get universal agreement. Finding the difference between "unconventional but not an exploit" versus "unconventional and would never work in real life because it takes advantage of an AI flaw" is a really difficult thing to do, so creating self-imposed rules to govern a large player base is not feasible.

[graphster21]

Quote: Originally Posted by goillini03

I guess that is my question. Why does the game have to produce realistic stats? I get that it has to produce a quicker game to get some scoring, but scoring 28 points should not be the end game. Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

People want to see realistic looking scores, is part of it.

One thing they could try and do is speed the game up to get more plays in during the same quarter lengths. For example, they could shorten the playclock to 20 or 25 seconds, which would have the effect of forcing people to call more plays. It would also change some of the end-game strategy, but perhaps that would be alright. You could also go the other direction and use longer quarters but automatically use an accelerated clock, but this becomes problematic when people are no-huddling or for end of half situations. They could also try and reduce and/or eliminate some of the cut scenes and presentation elements that slow the game down a little bit; at least in the regular online ranked/MUT environments.

If they got to a place where people were using almost the same number of plays and possessions per game as teams in real life (without having to sit through extremely long games), then they could tune it a bit differently. That would take some work and creative thinking, but they could probably do a few things that would at least make it better.