EA Play Video Critiques or Analysis

[stinkubus]

I'm really excited to try out some of the new defenses I've seen. I think zone defense is going to take another big leap forward if the match coverage works as intended.

The new 4-2-5 defense looks like hot fire in general. I'm hoping it's in the Steeler's book next year.

[4thQtrStre5S]

I agree with the key points identified by Vann. In regards to gameplay, I am most concerned with how defense and M2M coverage will work in the final build. I would prefer to have ratings influence coverage a little more than defensive play call versus offensive play call, ie route combos versus coverage called.

I believe EAs position is that each defensive play will have a counter. This results in M2M always being beat by certain routes, consistently. I can understand this from a strength/weakness perspective.

I would just prefer a slight shift in weights so M2M would have just a slight increase in covering routes they traditionally have failed at in Madden, especially if the corner is rated high in M2M.

But, if pass-rush is improved, thus reducing pocket time, then I would be fine with the trade-off of M2M continuing to be vulnerable to specific routes.

[BreakingBad2013]

Players are too thick and wide to me. I don’t understand why everyone looks like they’re 250 lbs body builders.

Also, with real step or whatever it’s called, I’d assume the WRs/TE releases would be better, and have different speeds based on the player, if you watch at snap, every player in a passing route almost wraps down the field instantly, there’s no delay from one guy to another, there’s no different running style or type between them it’s like they’re shot out of a cannon and reach max speed after their first step. Awful representation of football.

[vannwolfhawk]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

I am indifferent to all the videos being showcased at this time. I see the issues that Van noted, but I like some of the CPU AI decisions and RPM is a looking good. I know Clint mentioned in an interview that the build at EA Play was 3 weeks prior and was better looking than what they were displaying, but, like Van mentioned, not much will change till street date. I wish the challenge system was overhauled and punting into the wind. No one is asking those kinds of questions.

I hope others don’t get me wrong there is a lot of good in the videos too. I for sure see the improvements. When I played and now that I’ve been a coach for 20 plus years my number 1 rule is communication. I never wanted to hear what I was doing right after games, but I wanted to hear what I could have done better. As a coach though I balance the two. Players need to know when they do something right so they number 1 keep doing it and number 2 they need to know how to improve when they aren’t doing it right and how to do it properly. Constructive criticism... Straight up honesty builds trust between players and collective responsibility builds Pride in the team or in this case the project/Madden. Maybe in post 2 I make a list of the things done well over the past 3 years we do appreciate and hope they keep building on or don’t take them away?!

I did not notice the punting wind in videos or see a challenge either. Did you? Did I miss it? To be honest I never even looked, but these are certainly worthy of putting in the OP if not fixed again.

Edit: forgot about warped speed QB dropbacks. Those looked bad.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by vannwolfhawk

I hope others don’t get me wrong there is a lot of good in the videos too. I for sure see the improvements. When I played and now that I’ve been a coach for 20 plus years my number 1 rule is communication. I never wanted to hear what I was doing right after games, but I wanted to hear what I could have done better. As a coach though I balance the two. Players need to know when they do something right so they number 1 keep doing it and number 2 they need to know how to improve when they aren’t doing it right and how to do it properly. Constructive criticism... Straight up honesty builds trust between players and collective responsibility builds Pride in the team or in this case the project/Madden. Maybe in post 2 I make a list of the things done well over the past 3 years we do appreciate and hope they keep building on or don’t take them away?! I did not notice the punting wind in videos or see a challenge either. Did you? Did I miss it? To be honest I never even looked, but these are certainly worthy of putting in the OP if not fixed again.

I agree with most of the issues you mentioned. I was a coach too for youth sports for quite awhile and after each game I would ask, ok, what did we do correct today? Right after that I would ask, what did we do wrong today?

It appears to me that there isn't enough representation for the user vs cpu audience, the main focus seems to be aimed at the h2h online audiences or the competitive audience.

Penalties is another one of my hangups. Is DH back in the game for sim mode? I am hoping with RPM that penalties will be called appropriately.

[4thQtrStre5S]

Quote: Originally Posted by vannwolfhawk

I hope others don’t get me wrong there is a lot of good in the videos too. I for sure see the improvements. When I played and now that I’ve been a coach for 20 plus years my number 1 rule is communication. I never wanted to hear what I was doing right after games, but I wanted to hear what I could have done better. As a coach though I balance the two. Players need to know when they do something right so they number 1 keep doing it and number 2 they need to know how to improve when they aren’t doing it right and how to do it properly. Constructive criticism... Straight up honesty builds trust between players and collective responsibility builds Pride in the team or in this case the project/Madden. Maybe in post 2 I make a list of the things done well over the past 3 years we do appreciate and hope they keep building on or don’t take them away?! I did not notice the punting wind in videos or see a challenge either. Did you? Did I miss it? To be honest I never even looked, but these are certainly worthy of putting in the OP if not fixed again. Edit: forgot about warped speed QB dropbacks. Those looked bad.

You make a very good point about communication. Madden could benefit from more communication. We have some communication in game. We are told when we throw under pressure or off back foot, etc. But the community could benefit greatly from more communication.

Communication could be in the form of texts during or after a particular play event, such as "pass too low." Stating this fact would indicate to the user to throw a lob in that situation next time.

Visual communication would benefit situations such as dropped passes. If the drop pass animation looks "believable" the user will be less likely to blame the game mechanic, in theory.

Communication can be used in game to educate as well as explain what is happening on any given play.

We could even have audio communication as from teammates identifying an error. In Battlefield 5 there are audio cues such as "nice kill" or "thanks for the ammo" or "thanks for the med pack." These types of communication help to inform the player what is good to do and what is not good to do by rewarding with positive feedback or warning with a negative.

[vannwolfhawk]

Quote: Originally Posted by 4thQtrStre5S

You make a very good point about communication. Madden could benefit from more communication. We have some communication in game. We are told when we throw under pressure or off back foot, etc. But the community could benefit greatly from more communication. Communication could be in the form of texts during or after a particular play event, such as "pass too low." Stating this fact would indicate to the user to throw a lob in that situation next time. Visual communication would benefit situations such as dropped passes. If the drop pass animation looks "believable" the user will be less likely to blame the game mechanic, in theory. Communication can be used in game to educate as well as explain what is happening on any given play. We could even have audio communication as from teammates identifying an error. In Battlefield 5 there are audio cues such as "nice kill" or "thanks for the ammo" or "thanks for the med pack." These types of communication help to inform the player what is good to do and what is not good to do by rewarding with positive feedback or warning with a negative.

To piggyback on this post, 2k has a shot release feedback that you can toggle on and off to see if you had a perfect, good, or poor release as well as were you smothered, open, etc... That wouldn’t be a bad thing for newbies or whoever as it could give users reasons “why” there was a incomplete pass. OH, it was MY fault! Lol

I was referring to communication though between gamers & EA though. Yes, they have gamechangers, but let’s be honest most are there for the free marketing purposes of promoting Madden to millions of subscribers in their demographic. I don’t think it’s because they are all giving amazing feedback. Most I believe represent the online crowd. However there are a few I know that do represent sim like Smitty, simstandard, and shopmaster. I think Litez is good though (competitive player) and he definitely knows the in’s and out’s of x’s & o’s. I do think making things more sim actually helps the online competitive crowd if it’s realism at the forefront as well as I think in some ways the competitive crowd can help the sim community by fixing glitches, OP things, etc. But for some reason things aren’t being translated back to EA the way they need too imo. I believe they did see deuce’s great writeup though and that’s what needs to happen. If they are getting all this info then why isn’t it getting done? Why aren’t we knocking more of these things out? The CPU AI is 21 of the 22 players on the field. It needs to be a main focus! It is the overall experience.

There is so much negativity on forums, Twitter, etc that aren’t giving constructive criticism or feedback and comes off as attacking instead, so in turn I think that now EA just ignores the majority of the good feedback people are giving because of it. They just tune us out. The thing is though they could be running with it all. 2k devs dont post much on OS anymore, but you better believe every year you can see that they were all up in the wish list threads and listened as they fixed over 100 of them in just 1 cycle and this happens every year. Either we create some better threads or pass this info along to the appropriate gamechangers to give them idk, but somehow these things get lost in the shuffle. Maybe we need to communicate better with the appropriate people who can relay these things. Or find some different gamechangers who will. When I went to 2k years ago I had a 4 page list I gave Rob Jones. I am for know reason claiming I had anything to do with it, but I will say that 99% of those things on that list are now in the game. A couple of things were my ideas like setting the side of the PNR and where I wanted the screen to happen either on the right or left. Anyways, communication and constructive criticism is good for everyone and we all win in the end if it’s done properly.

[TB5XSBW]

Based on the build from those videos, the game looks identical to the previous 3 iterations.

I can see it now, when playing on defense against the CPU offense, the majority of plays will either be sacks, or long pass plays by the CPU, with very few plays in between. I'll be averaging 7 sacks per game again.

The CPU run game will be nonexistent as always.