Madden 18 Longshot Scott Porter Blog

[extremeskins04]

Quote: Originally Posted by BreakingBad2013

Marketing clearly doesn't care about the actual madden fan. They're just trying to lure casuals into buying it, and acting like they can "compete" with 2k's MyCareer Mode.

I mean Marketing is just trying to do their job and that is bring in new customers and make the company money. It's honestly not their fault.

The people we need to convince are the ones in charge. We need to be like "look at Deuces thread, this is what will make the most authentic Madden ever and it will bring people to the game that enjoy the game of the NFL."

I'm really hoping Rex will convey this to the higher ups.

[Rebel10]

Quote: Originally Posted by extremeskins04

The Journey was definitely well received by alot of people across the world and the reviews and metacritic show it. They were more upset of how short of a story it was over anything else. I personally thought the mode was very average and the story was pretty cliche. There were also times in The Journey where I felt it didn't matter how well or poorly I played in a match, the outcome was going to go down a certain path regardless. It got to a point where if I scored a goal I was like "did i really make that nice goal or did the game mode want me to?".

This is a critical problem with modes like these in sports games. When a sports game scripts your 'achievement,' it feels even cheaper than scripting in other narrative focused games like shooters or adventure games. Like, in Uncharted, you generally know at the end of the game, Nathan Drake is going to find the treasure, kill the bad guy, and get the girl, and you accept that when Nathan ("you") jumps from a building ledge to land on the back of a moving motorboat, that the game is giving you this scripted opportunity.

Sports games, though, have never been about that sort of experience, though developers have to walk a careful path between too much scripting and too much player freedom for narrative driven games. When the game becomes narrative driven to a fault, where player interactions simply don't matter at all, it cheapens the game. Walking Dead S1 seems to have a good balance between player action and the story: You can fail at the simple tasks which then kills off major characters and changes the story, and this becomes rewarding. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, was a considerable step back (at least the first two episodes I played) because it felt like nothing I did mattered outside of choosing discussion points. It felt more like a "choose your own adventure" story where the cutscenes were mapped out for me and I just went down a decision tree, versus anything that I had any control of as a game player.

Sports games risk disrupting immersion and breaking the core connection that the player has to his imagination athlete when events are clearly scripted. Madden has actually handled this surprisingly well in the last few years with those "Intro Games" that you launch Madden with from '16 and '17... They were scripted, the CPU was on easy mode, and they basically set you up to succeed, but you could fail at which point you'd go to the main menu and have to play it again to succeed. This is fine because it's a on-off. But, if in Longshot, you fail at what you're supposed to do, and then the narrative doesn't change, then it makes you question whether you're in control of the game, or if you're just hitting 'Play' on an interactive movie. The moments you describe in Fifa are a real risk. If the CPU defense is very challenging for most of the game, and then in the key moments, you can't miss and you break all of these tackles and then make the game winning touchdown pass, it doesn't feel like an achievement to you, it feels like you're hitting play on an interactive movie, and it breaks immersion.

EA has got to be careful with this mode, and I doubt that they will be. I agree with most people that it's a cheap way to make an interactive tutorial and a mode that they don't need to do much development work on, and then try to rope players into MUT for microtransactions. And then next year, they'll hype the long awaited Longshot Season 2, and repeat this over 4 or 5 games.

That is, if Madden still even exists in 5 years as we know it today. Personally, I think Longshot is another step towards turning Madden into a Games as a Service.

Quote: Originally Posted by oneamongthefence

Telltale games are extremely popular. I would bet there's a segment of the population that would really get into this mode that sounds like it has branching paths that would pay $15-$20 for it. Sent from my LGAS992 using Operation Sports mobile app

The Telltale games have taken a nose dive in quality and popularity over the last 3 years. Walking Dead had broad appeal because aside from the license, it was very well crafted. Today, Telltale is just buying rights to popular licenses and turning out complete ****, paint-by-numbers interactive movies. The broad appeal is gone, and games like Game of Thrones only sell because people are so into the license, which isn't unlike the NFL to be honest.

The arc for Telltale games peaked 3ish years ago, and real fans of the series would argue they peaked earlier than that, in 2012 with the original Walking Dead. If you look at the metacritic scores, both critic and user scores, from 2012 - 2014, Telltale almost couldn't miss with quality... and then they started the steady path downward, and now new Telltale releases are getting 50s and 60s on Metacritic, and 1s and 2s from users.

Compare 2012 - 2013 for Telltale, almost all green, scores in the high 80s and low 90s. Then compare that to 2016, almost all yellows, several reds, one or two greens in the low 80s, most scores in the 40 - 65 change. The only games that have decent reviews from Telltale are like the conclusion to the Minecraft story, and if you're someone who stuck through the lousy Stories 1 - 5 to finally play the last one, you're likely in a special class of self-loathing. They're not good, sales have tanked and the games have relied entirely on the universe of their source material and licensing. The sales are bolstered only in that they release the games on 6 or 7 platforms, something that EA does not do with Madden releasing only on 2 (assuming Longshot is not coming to the legacy 360/PS3 games)

Nobody who cares about Madden, either as a fan of the series or as a developer/producer/manager at EA, should want to emulate the Telltale experience.

[roadman]

It's very evident and clear this blog wasn't directed or marketed to the core community.

It's also clear that marketing wasn't finished marketing longshot to a new audience. ie similar to what Rex meant by marketing wanted to lead off with longshot.

It's also clear that what Rex tweeted earlier in the week that the core community will be targeted later in the week is becoming true.

Add it all up and I shouldn't have been surprised by yesterday.

Clear as mud. lol

[extremeskins04]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

It's very evident and clear this blog wasn't directed or marketed to the core community. It's also clear that marketing wasn't finished marketing longshot to a new audience. ie similar to what Rex meant by marketing wanted to lead off with longshot. It's also clear that what Rex tweeted earlier in the week that the core community will be targeted later in the week is becoming true. Add it all up and I shouldn't have been surprised by yesterday. Clear as mud. lol

Yesterday was the appetizer, later in the week is the main course.

But honestly yesterday was more like a small house salad. lol

[howboutdat]

Quote: Originally Posted by extremeskins04

I mean Marketing is just trying to do their job and that is bring in new customers and make the company money. It's honestly not their fault. The people we need to convince are the ones in charge. We need to be like "look at Deuces thread, this is what will make the most authentic Madden ever and it will bring people to the game that enjoy the game of the NFL." I'm really hoping Rex will convey this to the higher ups.

While i agree with you,there is a few major problems here.

1-Im sure Rex has tried to convey that to the suits ever since he has been there. Have they really listened yet?

2- The community has voiced this opinion for how long now? Has it really gotten the game there ?

3- I recall Rex basically blaming the drive to try to build the game to be sim , as a reason it had turned people from madden or made them mad at the dev team last year......

Yes i know they "made " a sim mode, that is supposed to make player attributes matter, which makes me wonder, so are they now admitting they didnt before? If they did before , then whats really "new" about sim mode? They have a clear focus for competitive now. So much so he is tweeting more about it than sim mode, when before last year he was " all about simulation football". Seems that mindset is changing some, and yes i know , its a business , and he has a boss. Im just pointing out , i dont see them turning around and putting that much focus back on simulation or CFM for that matter.

[Junior Moe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Rebel10

This is a critical problem with modes like these in sports games. When a sports game scripts your 'achievement,' it feels even cheaper than scripting in other narrative focused games like shooters or adventure games. Like, in Uncharted, you generally know at the end of the game, Nathan Drake is going to find the treasure, kill the bad guy, and get the girl, and you accept that when Nathan ("you") jumps from a building ledge to land on the back of a moving motorboat, that the game is giving you this scripted opportunity.

I simply look at them as campaign mode for sports games. Something to get you in, learn the mechanics of the game in an interactive way. I never touched superstar, Road to Glory or MyPlayer. I'm just not interested in playing as myself. I thought those modes were the stupidest thing ever. Then I played 2K16 with Spike Lees corny story, but I found myself wanting to play it out to see how it ended. It was fun. Once the actual MyPlayer part with no story started I was out. Same thing with Fifa Journey. Corny story but I had fun. I'm sure I'll enjoy Longshot for what it is. I think about how I felt with Titanfall with no story or really knowing what was what. I think stuff like Longshot offers something to gamers, not necessarily sports gamers, to latch on to.

[roadman]

I hope they didn't put a sim mode together just for the fun of it, that's for arcade mode. lol

[SolidSquid]

Quote: Originally Posted by howboutdat

While i agree with you,there is a few major problems here. 1-Im sure Rex has tried to convey that to the suits ever since he has been there. Have they really listened yet? 2- The community has voiced this opinion for how long now? Has it really gotten the game there ? 3- I recall Rex basically blaming the drive to try to build the game to be sim , as a reason it had turned people from madden or made them mad at the dev team last year...... Yes i know they "made " a sim mode, that is supposed to make player attributes matter, which makes me wonder, so are they now admitting they didnt before? If they did before , then whats really "new" about sim mode? They have a clear focus for competitive now. So much so he is tweeting more about it than sim mode, when before last year he was " all about simulation football". Seems that mindset is changing some, and yes i know , its a business , and he has a boss. Im just pointing out , i dont see them turning around and putting that much focus back on simulation or CFM for that matter.

Sim mode will be the same Madden we are all used to. Competitive will take out any randomness like drops, and arcade will be an all out shootout with no defense