An Early Look at Madden NFL 17 Presentation

[MajorSupreme]

Quote: Originally Posted by Trick13

Great! Another poorly implemented feature I gotta skip cuz of the play clock. Dadgummit EA, learn to utilize the the full area of my gigantic tv. Put theses "presentation" features above the play call screen and figure out how to have them run in such a way that the play call screen smoothly transitions into the field view while these "presentation" features fade out as the gameplay screen grows to full screen as my team reaches the LOS!!! Same with replays, solo play, online play should have frequent replays while the play call screen is the bottom half, heck even two player games could split the bottom into two halves and run replays and stats/presentation features up top. I can not comprehend how EA has not arrived at this on their own...

Let's pump the brakes for a second, does the playclock actually tick while you are watching presentation elements within a game? I'm not so sure that happens.

[Gridiron]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Choices are great and all but just hand-waving at a point of contention and say "give us choices!" doesn't make them happen, nor does it make their associated code easier to maintain, nor is the decision to make that choice available the most cost-effective way to make a game better. Tiburon could probably make the current play-call menu full-screen without much issue - similar to how they made the same menu skinny with the Slim play call option with a Madden 15 title update. However, I'm going to guess that maximizing the current interface to fullscreen and nothing more than that whatsoever probably isn't what you want for this. To get something with a picture-in-picture on a second render target for replays and whatnot, wholesale layout changes to better work with the horizontal aspect ratio of full-screen, and maybe some live opponent tendency information which updates in-game to fill in negative space previously used by dynamic shots of the field and instant replays, they'd have to throw a bunch of their UI programmers at building a new screen. Once one considers the fact that this new full-screen play call would be something that only a very small percentage of users would ever use, it is very easy to reach the conclusion that adding that choice into the game is a massive waste of resources. It doesn't give you the most bang for your buck compared to, say, a new big feature for Connected Franchise which requires the same UI programmers the same amount of time to implement (the UI engineers are their own team, are shared across all game modes, and are required to make any new menu-driven game feature work). And this doesn't even get into the problems that more choices potentially introduces (pointed glare at the new kick meter UI options causing online desyncs in Madden NFL 15). As it pertains to game development, "more choices" isn't the most reasonable solution to everything.

I can't speak for others, but I'm an offline player, so the online issues wouldn't effect me.

They're already giving us multiple choices. Considering that they already have like 3 or 4 playcall options, I'd love to know the data on how many people don't use the default. I pick slim because it's the least intrusive, but I still hate it cause it has the least functionality. All-Pro Football started this mess, Madden 10 picked it up. To me, it's like they attempted to be modern and wound up just being less functional which isn't all that modern.

Madden 09 stunk, but I liked how I could check stats, get replays, and check on player status right from the playcall screen without pausing. The replays felt live because you could still hear the crowd like you would on TV, and if you did it at the right time the commentary would play over it. It was the first time (and last time) that experience felt live. Before and since, everything has a break and that live feel isn't there.

[Rocky]

Madden should really go the full organic TV broadcast route. Madden's broadcast often feels disjointed and inorganic because of the lack of context with some of the postplay animations and ridiculous camera angles.

I mean how many times to you see that weird "from underneath" camera angle on a real TV broadcast? Never because it would be 1) it would be a hard shot to get consistently. 2) It would take from the overall broadcast.

I actually think Madden does a decently good job of overlays and things of that nature but it's sort of like putting lipstick on a pig.

[Gridiron]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rocky

Madden should really go the full organic TV broadcast route. Madden's broadcast often feels disjointed and inorganic because of the lack of context with some of the postplay animations and ridiculous camera angles. I mean how many times to you see that weird "from underneath" camera angle on a real TV broadcast? Never because it would be 1) it would be a hard shot to get consistently. 2) It would take from the overall broadcast. I actually think Madden does a decently good job of overlays and things of that nature but it's sort of like putting lipstick on a pig.

Yeah man, I agree. They went WAY overboard with the on-field post play camera in 16 too. It needed to be in the game, yeah, but it dominates greater than 80% of the post-play shots in Madden, when on TV it actually hovers around the single digits. It's a special camera that's only used in very specific and special moments. What is Tiburon thinking? Why on earth do they think these things are good ideas that help the game? Smh.

This is the perfect example of why trying to be creative is in opposition to simulation. We don't need creativity, we need AUTHENTICITY. You can't be on both sides of the fence, you have to pick a side and commit to it or you just wind up with a confused experience that ends up not hitting either mark. We went through all last generation explaining that to them and for a while it looked like the message was getting through (see Madden 12), but now we're back to where we started. Nevermind that the other AAA sports developers are getting it and not doing this silly stuff.

[JOS1181]

So they decided to use a FPS match recap view for " presentation ".. Yeah. Not impressed. Newsflash EA.. Madden isnt an FPS. It needs proper NFL presentation.

[Aggies7]

Quote: Originally Posted by MajorSupreme

Let's pump the brakes for a second, does the playclock actually tick while you are watching presentation elements within a game? I'm not so sure that happens.

I do not believe the play clock runs during any of the presentation.