EA vs. its fans.

[DeuceDouglas]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

The sooner people stop unnecessarily demonizing and misunderstanding XP and its place in the game, the sooner they will be happy with franchise mode in Madden.

I didn't mention XP at all in my post and I've said before that I'm fine with XP as it's simply the medium for progressing players so I'm not sure where you're getting that I'm demonizing XP at all.

The new practice additions are nice on the surface but just further exemplify the problems in regards to how progression is handled. If I'm spending an entire season practicing nothing but Cover 4 concepts, why is that something that can make a player stronger, faster or hit harder? If I spend an entire season practicing HB Dive concepts, how does it make sense that the entirety of that the time my team spent never practicing pass blocking, could make my entire line better pass blockers?

What is remotely realistic about that? Those type of asinine questions pop up at nearly every turn when it comes to CFM whether it be Big Decision Injuries, progression, goals, etc.

But it's pointless to even go back and forth over it because there likely isn't anything that will be able to convince me that this methodology is sound or realistic and that having things like season goals, weekly/yearly awards and Pro Bowls is a good way to dictate the rise and fall of a players potential.

[underdog13]

The xp system might not be the most realistic because you pick which attributes your player improves, but it produces far better RESULTS when it comes to progression and regression than ps2/xbox and ps3/360 era madden.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Big FN Deal

most gamers as a whole would agree that's good design for a NFL Franchise mode.

Most gamers aren't professional video game designers, either.

Quote:

they know damn well they wouldn't want this in Madden

The game designers at Tiburon build AAA games for a living under the umbrella of one of the largest and richest video game publishers in the world, Electronic Arts. A systemic advantage they enjoy thanks to this positioning is that they have access to robust and extremely scalable video game telemetry systems and infrastructure. Using these systems, they gather a cornucopia of information and data about how users interact with their games, information and data that we - the entire population of Madden NFL gamers, not just Operation Sports - do not have, will never see, and cannot possibly hope to gather on account of the sheer scale of the endeavor.

With this massive amount of information gathered and analyzed, The designers at Tiburon know exactly how we play Madden. They know what modes we spend time in. They know how much time we spend on each screen. They know the places in the game where we spend the most time, and they know the choke points in the game which result in most their players dropping out of the game's player population entirely, having gone on to play something else.

They know what we want in Madden better than we do.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by DeuceDouglas

If I'm spending an entire season practicing nothing but Cover 4 concepts, why is that something that can make a player stronger, faster or hit harder?

In the spirit of customizations and options - which I believe this forum has a favorable opinion on given the love shown for the return of player editing features - Tiburon decided early on that the user should be able to spend his players' earned XP however they want.

They do, however, provide strong guidance about the best paths to upgrade a player with how much each attribute costs to upgrade. If a user wants to do that against the guidance provided by the game, they aren't going to actively prevent that. For example, be honest, when's the last time you or anyone you know spent the absurd amount of XP required to upgrade SPD one point? Are you really that offended if someone else you are playing against uses it, knowing how much more they could have upgraded his player if he bought multiple attributes which cost less?

Meanwhile, you still are provided the option to only spend XP on the things you practiced if that's how you choose to play the game. There is nothing stopping you from custom-tailoring how you experience the mechanic in that fashion.

Quote:

What is remotely realistic about that?

Nothing.

In this case, video game usability and consolidation of mechanics won out over "sim", and game is a better experience for a wider cross-section of Madden's fans because of it.

Requiring a user to play specific drills with specific players to improve specific ratings is tedious and unnecessary micromanagement, and playing drills with 53 players a week would take way too long and put too much busy work between users and actually playing games. In contrast, the more reasonable approach of leaving that all to a predictable menu-driven simulation of weekly tasks (such as Game Prep in M15 / M16) isn't engaging in the slightest to the average console gamer, either (as in, someone who isn't on OS and doesn't already have a deep understanding of football).

What exists now with training is a happy medium. It doesn't take too much time so it never feels like it's in the way of playing games and advancing further into your league. It actively teaches new users how to play the game by funneling them into Skills Trainer, which teaches high-level football concepts. It requires the user master the components of the game taught in the drills to succeed at the game, since all the XP rewards are based on drill results. For "sim" players, it's also authentic, since the drills run again all use real-world football concepts and are taught in believable contexts. It's fundamentally sound game design.

[jerwoods]

Madden seems like they dont know what they want EX we want sim and then it takes 40 min to play a game of madden and every time we get a 3 year plan we have to start over


my gripe now is no ref calls ex for holding facemask in the sega days mad 97 this was pefect


it will never be pefect no game is

what i want to see going foward is better AI play smarter in the 2 min dill
better crowd noise maybe look at Madden 2005 and let the def Dominate

[roadman]

I get my fair share of holding and facemask penalties and too much if it's anything over 53.

If anyone wants to fire a question at John White, one of the current developers of CFM, now is the chance in this thread.

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...-series-2.html

[SyncereBlackout]

Quote: Originally Posted by Big FN Deal

This post was confusing for me, it seems you are suggesting they shouldn't add back real assistant/position coach positions until there is a brilliant idea for how to implement them. Not to be funny but if that were the bar for realism in any game, there would be minimal authenticity. It's logical to lay a realistic foundation that is basic and potentially is built into something brilliant over time. The prior way those positions were handled in Madden had real NFL positions, real NFL coaches/coordinators by name, real players retiring in Franchise mode capable of coming back to coach, salaries, teams could poach from each others coaching pool as long as they were offering a better position/promotion and potential player ratings boosts, which is just from M12, M05 had even more stuff, all of which could be simmed/automated. The obvious thing with your reference to Salary caps is it can simply be turned off or automated but it certainly shouldn't be scaled back universally. Yes a realistic complex contract structure wouldn't be something every gamer would want to directly deal with or maybe even have period and they wouldn't have to but it would exist for others. On the flip side if it's left out completely because of that, there is nothing there for others that want that. The former is clearly more inclusive than the latter and it baffles me when it's presented as somehow divisive. Lastly the draft classes, you are mistaken, even the current player editing they have touted for M17, is not the same as custom draft classes. I won't go into specifics, there are plenty of threads that break that down. It's cool that you are ok with what is currently offered but again custom draft classes being in for others, doesn't tread on that.

I'm suggesting they should not add assistant coaches (something I've clamped for since forever) until there is a way to thoughtfully and dynamically implement them. Yes. It's not the bar for realism In a game, but IMO it is the minimum threshold for a quality realistic game. To be clear I was contrasting including assistant coaches (just because they exist IRL) vs including assistant coaches in a manner where their impact on the game is commensurate with their impact on teams IRL.

I see your point about building something brilliant over time. But I personally reject the approach of "just getting something out there" and fixing, patching, improving it once it's been (generally) prematurely released. A little more work upfront goes a long way. I'm ok with waiting several cycles for proper implementation.

I recall the functionality in the past. It was serviceable however may not necessarily translate to CFM currently given the focus on coach XP and "upgrades."

Fully editable rosters and custom draft classes are technically different but fundamentally the same. To me it's a chicken or egg. Only question is whether the edits happen before or after the draft. Since the CPU (assuming it's not a 32 man CFM) doesn't draft intelligently, there is no difference to me. If you could share draft classes like in previous madden games, well there I'll concede that's a huge game changer.

[Mauer4MVP]

Quote: Originally Posted by underdog13

The xp system might not be the most realistic because you pick which attributes your player improves, but it produces far better RESULTS when it comes to progression and regression than ps2/xbox and ps3/360 era madden.

In my opinion, I don't think RPG elements should ever be in a sports franchise mode. I don't mind a training camp or mini camp session each year where you can improve a few players in a specific area.

Otherwise, I think development should be always be some what random based on the game's development engine. There should be different potential ratings. Their ceiling potential, their floor potential, and then the likelihood of reaching that ceiling.