Sm27's Madden Manifesto for 2010, a preview...

[Sm27]

I spoke with someone closely involved with the Madden development team. I have also been playing the game a lot the last few days to try and sort out the most glaring issues for prioritizing what exactly the Manifesto 2010 Team needs to accomplish. I have to say that, until something can be done about the totally broken run blocking in the game, playability issues are a pointless endeavor. No amount of slider manipulation can fix the hard coding in the OL run blocking AI. This issue simply HAS to be the number one priority in the first patch. Everything else is absolutely secondary to that issue. In my conversations with this developement resource, we did a cursory analysis overview of the Sim Engine stat output and although there are a couple of issues with the number of QB's with QB ratings over 100 as well as a few other things, the EA team did a really good job of addressing realistic stat output in the sim engine. A quick fix for some of the minor unrealistic sim engine stat output can be quickly fixed with minor re-rates from EA in their next roster, or we can do this ourselves very easily if they don't address it to our satisfaction when the first "opening day" roster is released.

If you remember, one of the main inspirations for the first Manifesto back in 2004 was the problem that no matter what you did, your user controlled team would 9 times out of 10 end up being 1st against the run, and last against the pass. Well, guess what, that will not change until the run blocking AI in "played games" is addressed. You might not be last against the pass anymore, but from my preliminary investigation, you will most certainly be number one against the run....In it's present state, it's just broke. So we all need to lobby as vigorously as possible to have this corrected.

Penalties on Field Goals, (for that matter Penalties in general) is incredibly important to be addressed as well as a host of other issues, but I can't emphasize the point strenuously enough that until the Run Blocking is addressed in a patch for the game, quite literally, nothing else matters at this point as far as getting the game to "play right". At this point if they just hard coded the OL to block the closest guy in a simple universal zone blocking scheme that would still be a monumental improvement over what it is now.

All of the CPU play calling issues that everyone is noticing can easily, and I mean EASILY, be corrected once we get into the weeds with manipulating coaching sliders and playbooks. It will be time consuming but well worth it when we are done.

So in closing.....
As to what our priorities will be in going forward...
I will continue to make myself a complete pain in the *** to my source at EA about this run blocking snafu to get that fixed for the next couple of weeks before the Opening Day Roster is released. I am looking at this pre season time as exactly that. Let's see if we can get just two things done at EA by using our vast community as one loud voice. Let's get two things patched for offline play most certainly.

1.) Run Blocking. Somebody needs to wake up the RG and tell him that the C can manage to block the NG on his own most of the time, especially if it means that by helping the C he is subjecting the RB to a Team Picture of the LB Corps in the backfield on every damn play. I mean let's have the OL at least block SOMEBODY and not just run around in space looking lost, OK? To be clear here...I am just using the RG as one example, the whole damn line is guilty of not knowing what the hell to do. I do appreciate the stellar work that EA has done to address "suction blocking" animations, and some credit is do, but this deficiancy is killing the game on every level. Do I really have to list all the ways that this is the number one important thing?

2.) Penalties. I want these sliders to never have to even APPROACH "100". If these sliders are at "100" I want to see AT LEAST one penalty on EVERY PLAY (not to mention 'offsetting penalties').
On "0" I should see NO PENALTIES AT ALL. If EA gives us this range in these sliders, we will sort out which penalty sliders should be set where thank you. A good 75% of the drama of a game is the damn zebras pissing you off or helping you with those damn yellow bean bags, either stopping drives, extending drives, or playing havoc with your playcalling on a situational basis.
For example...If I have a rookie CB or a TIRED CB, he should be getting flagged for having to cheat with Pass Interference, Defensive Holding, or Illegal Use of the Hands. I should have to make a decision on benching him because he is killing me with free yardage for the other team. When I see him starting to get tired, that should tell me that I either take a chance with a "double X" or a "double Z" defense, sub him out to get a blow and risk my sub getting punked, or hope the Side Judge is looking at a nice set of Ta-Ta's in the crowd so he doesn't throw the flag.

If we can get these two lousy things done, we will have no problem whatsoever fixing "gameplay" issues like CPU playcalling with the tools they have given us. The Sim Engine is in suprizingly good shape.

[Jukeman]

SM, I have speed at very slow, threshold at 0 with run blocking at 100....animantion are great and I dont see stuid AI blocking any on top of that the running games is good....Check out my sliders somewhere around here...

As for coaching settings, im ready to dig into that whenever you are

[BFavre4MVP]

I rarely post here anymore, but I remember back in the MM days watching this entire operation. Simply incredible. I can't be as much help as I could have been earlier in the summer with classes starting a week from tomorrow, but it's not like I don't play enough video games in college anyways.

Let me know if I can be of any assistance! Welcome back!

[parrothead]

Did the source mention the sim rushing TD's?

[KingV2k3]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sm27

I spoke with someone closely involved with the Madden development team. I have also been playing the game a lot the last few days to try and sort out the most glaring issues for prioritizing what exactly the Manifesto 2010 Team needs to accomplish. I have to say that, until something can be done about the totally broken run blocking in the game, playability issues are a pointless endeavor. No amount of slider manipulation can fix the hard coding in the OL run blocking AI. This issue simply HAS to be the number one priority in the first patch. Everything else is absolutely secondary to that issue. In my conversations with this developement resource, we did a cursory analysis overview of the Sim Engine stat output and although there are a couple of issues with the number of QB's with QB ratings over 100 as well as a few other things, the EA team did a really good job of addressing realistic stat output in the sim engine. A quick fix for some of the minor unrealistic sim engine stat output can be quickly fixed with minor re-rates from EA in their next roster, or we can do this ourselves very easily if they don't address it to our satisfaction when the first "opening day" roster is released. If you remember, one of the main inspirations for the first Manifesto back in 2004 was the problem that no matter what you did, your user controlled team would 9 times out of 10 end up being 1st against the run, and last against the pass. Well, guess what, that will not change until the run blocking AI in "played games" is addressed. You might not be last against the pass anymore, but from my preliminary investigation, you will most certainly be number one against the run....In it's present state, it's just broke. So we all need to lobby as vigorously as possible to have this corrected. Penalties on Field Goals, (for that matter Penalties in general) is incredibly important to be addressed as well as a host of other issues, but I can't emphasize the point strenuously enough that until the Run Blocking is addressed in a patch for the game, quite literally, nothing else matters at this point as far as getting the game to "play right". At this point if they just hard coded the OL to block the closest guy in a simple universal zone blocking scheme that would still be a monumental improvement over what it is now. All of the CPU play calling issues that everyone is noticing can easily, and I mean EASILY, be corrected once we get into the weeds with manipulating coaching sliders and playbooks. It will be time consuming but well worth it when we are done. So in closing..... As to what our priorities will be in going forward... I will continue to make myself a complete pain in the *** to my source at EA about this run blocking snafu to get that fixed for the next couple of weeks before the Opening Day Roster is released. I am looking at this pre season time as exactly that. Let's see if we can get just two things done at EA by using our vast community as one loud voice. Let's get two things patched for offline play most certainly. 1.) Run Blocking. Somebody needs to wake up the RG and tell him that the C can manage to block the NG on his own most of the time, especially if it means that by helping the C he is subjecting the RB to a Team Picture of the LB Corps in the backfield on every damn play. I mean let's have the OL at least block SOMEBODY and not just run around in space looking lost, OK? To be clear here...I am just using the RG as one example, the whole damn line is guilty of not knowing what the hell to do. I do appreciate the stellar work that EA has done to address "suction blocking" animations, and some credit is do, but this deficiancy is killing the game on every level. Do I really have to list all the ways that this is the number one important thing? 2.) Penalties. I want these sliders to never have to even APPROACH "100". If these sliders are at "100" I want to see AT LEAST one penalty on EVERY PLAY (not to mention 'offsetting penalties'). On "0" I should see NO PENALTIES AT ALL. If EA gives us this range in these sliders, we will sort out which penalty sliders should be set where thank you. A good 75% of the drama of a game is the damn zebras pissing you off or helping you with those damn yellow bean bags, either stopping drives, extending drives, or playing havoc with your playcalling on a situational basis. For example...If I have a rookie CB or a TIRED CB, he should be getting flagged for having to cheat with Pass Interference, Defensive Holding, or Illegal Use of the Hands. I should have to make a decision on benching him because he is killing me with free yardage for the other team. When I see him starting to get tired, that should tell me that I either take a chance with a "double X" or a "double Z" defense, sub him out to get a blow and risk my sub getting punked, or hope the Side Judge is looking at a nice set of Ta-Ta's in the crowd so he doesn't throw the flag. If we can get these two lousy things done, we will have no problem whatsoever fixing "gameplay" issues like CPU playcalling with the tools they have given us. The Sim Engine is in suprizingly good shape.

Very encouraging report on priorities...

Not sure how to get Ian and company to read this post / follow this thread tho...

The more I think / read about the patches, I get the feeling that the first one will be tor the holding on field goal glitch and perhaps the CPU players running out of bounds for no good reason, etc...

The second patch was rfered to as the 'meat and potatoes' one that means that in the worst case scenario, we won't have a reasonable product to beat into perfection until October / November (based on the patch schedule from last year)...

November is WAAAAAY better than NEVER, which is what I suspected may be the case in current gen Madden...

I got soooo bored with the repetitveness of the PS2 version, I took it back, and have an HDTV on backorder...I'll be getting one of the new slim PS3's when the TV arrives and look forward to helping out with this project...

As I recall, the XBOX and PS2 both worked the same, where the original "Manifesto" was concerned...

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by Crippa

Holy sh*t.... So, is this also for PS3? Or is the XBOX360 manifesto able to work with the PS3?

Generally speaking, the options we manipulate in the manifesto are identical in both versions. I doubt there'll be compatibility issues.

I've started looking into the CPU blitzing issues. Like the original manifesto, it will require controlling all 32 NFL teams in Franchise mode to accomplish this, but I'm having very good results looking at what I can change with the coaching philosophy sliders. A lot of the background mechanics seem to work about the same, so we'll be able to carry forward what we learned for the '05 edition.

The nice thing is that, this time, we have the devs ears a little bit, and hopefully we can get the things we can't fix dealt with in patches/roster updates (for the record, some of the stat issues in franchise mode, we theorize, can be fixed through roster adjustments).

The original manifesto was comprehensive and covered most aspects of franchise mode... expect no different this time around. Anybody who wants to be involved, we've got plenty of leg work to do, so when you see 'testing this or that' threads pop up, please pop in and see how you can help

The first few weeks will be spent simply observing how the computer adjusts to various tweaks we can make.

[DerkontheOS]

Count me in!

[KingV2k3]

Should I pick up a second controller when I get my PS3 to run a CPU profile with?

Is that still the only way to get realistic fatigue settings for the CPU controlled team?