Developers on the EA Forums part II

[roadman]

More questions answered.

Face mask penalties are in. Sounds like they tweaked the penalties this year. We'll see.


Why did you change the controller config on 360/PS3?
Though we realize it is very hard to change a configuration once you get used to it, we think that the switch of sprint from the primary X button on PS2 (or A on Xbox) to the trigger was the right move to make, because: 1.) Every other sports game has R2 / RT as sprint, and 2.) It was really awkward to do moves like hurdle and spin (and anything on the R-stick) when you had your thumb planted on the X button. By freeing up all the face buttons and Right- Stick, the moves are much easier to pull off. With all that being said, we have always had a custom controls option where you can change it to anything you like.

Where are the refs / chain gang?
There’ s no excuse other than this has just been a (painful) priority call for us over the past few years. Since everything takes much more time on the nextgen platforms to implement, the time needed to create the models, animation, physics, and AI for these characters has just been more than we were able to spend given all of the other priorities in a given year.

Where are the field goal nets?
Field goal nets are finally back in Madden NFL 2009.

What about clear visors?
Clear visors are finally included in Madden NFL 2009. Also included are many colored visors like blue, amber, green, etc, which are just starting to appear in the real NFL – we think this is a trend that will start to continue.

Are there hand towels or hand-warmers in the game?
No, not yet.

Has the “bowling pin” phenomenon been fixed – where players all fall away from a tackle as it happens?
This has been much improved, but since we can’t currently create 5, 6, 7, and 8 man pile-ups or pile-ons, we still do have instances where a defender gets collided with by a large force (a tackle coming right at him) - and just he can’t get out of the way, so rather than interpenetrate he has to play a “fall” animation. We’ve add a lot more avoidance animations and brand new physics-informed fall animations this year so you really won’t see the mass of players all flying everywhere around the pile nearly as often as year’s prior, but there is still room for improvement in this area.

Why isn’t the ESPN broadcast package used in Madden?
EA’s relationship with ESPN and the NFL allows us to provide streamed audio and video directly from ESPN and the NFL. In Madden NFL 09, we provide our fans with access to compelling ESPN and NFL content like NFL Total Access, SportsCenter highlights, PTI segments, etc. We now give you an incredibly fun and realistic football experience with the game and also provide access to compelling football news that only ESPN and the NFL Network could provide.

Do players wear their own helmets in the Pro- Bowl?
No, unfortunately they do not – they wear the generic NFC and AFC helmets.

Are there any more attributes added to player ratings?
Not this year actually…after adding new ratings consistently over the past 3 years, this year we wanted to really focus on tuning our (now rather large) current list of ratings. We have a wishlist of about 50 more ratings that we want to try and add, and hopefully we can get to some new ones each year.

Are the following features included in Madden NFL 09? If not, why not?
1. In-game saves
2. Custom cameras
3. Coach mode
4. Accelerated clock
No, they currently are not. These are priority calls balanced against all of the other things we wanted to accomplish this year.

What’s up with no / few penalties being called?
This has actually been a conscious decision for a few years because it felt cheap to randomly award penalties unless the penalty animation actually triggered and you could see it. It was one of the things we found most frustrating about old-gen, that you would get a holding penalty on say your left guard, and then you’d go into replay and there would be no actual holding penalty. In Madden NFL 09 we finally have this though – true penalty-based animations. You will see a much more realistic balance with more clipping, holding, and face-mask penalties, and the best part is that you can go into replay and actually see the penalty as it occurred.

What’s up with the sidelines? Why does Head Coach 09 have such better looking sidelines?
We actually did spend a lot of time getting much more sideline population and variety into Madden NFL 09. When you see the game compared to the last 3 next-gen versions, you will see that quite a bit of work did go into it (though not to the extent of Head Coach). As always, it’s a balancing act with how much time we have. When the decisions had to be made, we focused more on on-field graphics, lighting, weather, and general gameplay instead of going all-out into ultra-detailed sidelines. NFL Head Coach 09 on the other hand…much of their core gameday experience takes place on those sidelines, so that’s why they chose to spend more resources in that area.

Are nano-blitzes still a problem?
We’ve added back the popular slide protection feature this year as well as tuned our pass blocking AI (and animation system) extensively, so nano’s should all be preventable this year.

Have spectacular catches / jet pack catches been toned down?
Yes, definitely. The spectacular catches have been toned way down in terms of how powerful they are, and defenders also have a much easier chance of knocking the ball out (since the receiver is really putting himself out there on big leaping catches like that).

Are Linebackers/Corners still super-human when it comes to making a play on a pass?
This has been tuned way down as well. You will see MUCH more realistic defensive pass coverage / play from the linebackers and corners. They have a much harder time making plays on the ball that they don’t “see”, they react in a much more realistic time-frame to the play (using their play recognition rating) and the distance at which they can make a play on the ball in the air has been drastically tuned down…so more often than not you’ll see them try to set up for a big hit to jar the ball loose instead of warping over to swat the ball down.

Do kickers still boot it way deep into the back of the endzone regularly?
No, this was tuned back to much more realistic kickoff lengths.

What happened to formation subs?
Formation subs are back in Madden NFL 09.

What happened to slide protection?
Slide protection is back in Madden NFL 09.

What about fatigue…how has it changed this year?
Our very robust fatigue system was brand new to last year, and it has been tweaked and tuned moreso for Madden NFL 09 to provide much more accurate results. We really want to make sure defensive teams that are getting pounded on with the run game really get tired towards the end of a long drive, and we also wanted to discourage frequent fly routes and no-huddle offenses. The system was further tuned to address these issues.

Have the fumble problems been addressed?
Yes, this was addressed in a patch for Madden NFL 08, and those changes were carried over to Madden NFL 09. After those fixes went in, we also re- factored the way animations, ratings, and weather impacted fumbling – I think you’ll see it’s much more realistic this year.

Has the O-line play been improved? If so, what has been done?
Has the D-line play been improved?
What are you guys doing to curve the cheating?
What about those "ranker uppers", those who level up playing level 1's?
Are there still moments where the receiver won’t give that extra effort to make a play?
Will cut-scenes and halftime shows make a comeback this gen?
Will there be playoff and Super Bowl atmosphere and cut-scenes of the Trophy Raising?
...to be answered soon...
- Ian C

[Dudd]

While most of his answers are standard 'we're aware of the issue, we're improving, we think you'll be happy with the results this year' blah blah blah that we've heard so many time before, one of his answers really showed to me the whole problem with how EA approaches football.

Quote:

" They would jump to deflect the ball and when they miss they end up tackling you at the same time while your WR is still in his stride going for the ball." - smokecapone This is definitely on purpose...we put this in a few years back and we wanted the defenders to still have a chance at making a play. It's in there as a balance so because before that, there were a ton of huge plays for TD - just because a DB just missed a swat for whatever reason. That being said, if the community thinks this is maybe a really big deal, we could look at changing it or forcing the DB to be play in a much less aggressive manner.

Notice the one thing that isn't mentioned: REAL FOOTBALL! It's like they're working in a Madden vacuum. If you watch real football, you'll know that the reasons long bombs don't dominate is that they are hard to execute. The throw is hard, the catch is hard, everything has to be perfect. Even if the WR has a step on the CB, he still doesn't get burned every time because sometimes the ball is overthrown and sometimes it's underthrown. If that happens, then the WR has to stretch for the ball, reach for the ball, dive for the ball, and he doesn't always get it. And yeah, sometimes the defender makes a great play on the ball to break it up as well. If none of those things happen, then congratulations to the offense. But none of that makes the answer, instead it's just mentioned that they were seeing too many long balls, so rather than work on making the game more real, they just threw in a bandaid to cover the problem, and what, that looks strange to you? Maybe we can try a different band aid and make the defenders play further back, which of course would then lead to a bandaid to fix all the underneath routes that suddenly open up, and that's how you come up with the unique brand of football that exists only in video games and not real life.

[SteelerSpartan]

I hear way too much of the word "priority" as an excuse

And with a company as big and rich as EA its just inexcusable for me...especially when they're the only game in town.


Theres no excuse to not have all the liked CG features in the NG games by the 4th iteration.

The budget for Madden and NCAA should at the very least.....be whatever it needs to be to get CG features into NG

^^^^But even then that pisses me off that we are talking about being excited over last gen features

[Kramer5150]

Meh...pretty much standard "run of the mill" answers.
The one thing I would like to know however.....have they done anything with that pathetic,sad excuse for a challenge system?
Can we actually pick WHAT we want to challenge? or better yet,will the cpu actually challenge calls as well?

[wildthing2022000]

Quote: Originally Posted by SteelerSpartan

I hear way too much of the word "priority" as an excuse And with a company as big and rich as EA its just inexcusable for me...especially when they're the only game in town. Theres no excuse to not have all the liked CG features in the NG games by the 4th iteration. The budget for Madden and NCAA should at the very least.....be whatever it needs to be to get CG features into NG ^^^^But even then that pisses me off that we are talking about being excited over last gen features

I don't think it's the budget that's the problem it's time. They have 1 year to do the game vs. 2/3 years with other games. A way to fix it in theory is to have 2 teams work on 2 games(Maybe the TT people....). 1st team starts on 2011 while the 2nd team works on 2012 (team 2 works on 2010). That's how I think it could dramatically improve the game.

That ESPN response stunk, showing me highlights from the day's SC has no effect on my desire to see virtual ESPN announcers calling the current game in Madden or a virtual Draft in the game with player analysis & everything.

[K_GUN]

Quote: Originally Posted by wildthing2022000

That ESPN response stunk, showing me highlights from the day's SC has no effect on my desire to see virtual ESPN announcers calling the current game in Madden or a virtual Draft in the game with player analysis & everything.

most likely not EA's call.......the NFL is attempting to build a network with its own announcers......putting the NFL network branding on madden gives NFL network some incredible exposure

[Vikes1]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dudd

Even if the WR has a step on the CB, he still doesn't get burned every time because sometimes the ball is overthrown and sometimes it's underthrown.

Excellent post in it's entirety Dudd...but I wanted to focus on this statement.

I too wish there were far more passes that were off target. Especially of course deep passes. It can get pretty frustrating in franchise mode when nearly every pass short or long is perfectly thrown by the cpu. Having a 72 rated cpu QB carving up your secondary is quite unrealistic.

[beau21]

Quote: Originally Posted by roadman

More questions answered. Face mask penalties are in. Sounds like they tweaked the penalties this year. We'll see. Why did you change the controller config on 360/PS3? Though we realize it is very hard to change a configuration once you get used to it, we think that the switch of sprint from the primary X button on PS2 (or A on Xbox) to the trigger was the right move to make, because: 1.) Every other sports game has R2 / RT as sprint, and 2.) It was really awkward to do moves like hurdle and spin (and anything on the R-stick) when you had your thumb planted on the X button. By freeing up all the face buttons and Right- Stick, the moves are much easier to pull off. With all that being said, we have always had a custom controls option where you can change it to anything you like. Where are the refs / chain gang? There’ s no excuse other than this has just been a (painful) priority call for us over the past few years. Since everything takes much more time on the nextgen platforms to implement, the time needed to create the models, animation, physics, and AI for these characters has just been more than we were able to spend given all of the other priorities in a given year. Where are the field goal nets? Field goal nets are finally back in Madden NFL 2009. What about clear visors? Clear visors are finally included in Madden NFL 2009. Also included are many colored visors like blue, amber, green, etc, which are just starting to appear in the real NFL – we think this is a trend that will start to continue. Are there hand towels or hand-warmers in the game? No, not yet. Has the “bowling pin” phenomenon been fixed – where players all fall away from a tackle as it happens? This has been much improved, but since we can’t currently create 5, 6, 7, and 8 man pile-ups or pile-ons, we still do have instances where a defender gets collided with by a large force (a tackle coming right at him) - and just he can’t get out of the way, so rather than interpenetrate he has to play a “fall” animation. We’ve add a lot more avoidance animations and brand new physics-informed fall animations this year so you really won’t see the mass of players all flying everywhere around the pile nearly as often as year’s prior, but there is still room for improvement in this area. Why isn’t the ESPN broadcast package used in Madden? EA’s relationship with ESPN and the NFL allows us to provide streamed audio and video directly from ESPN and the NFL. In Madden NFL 09, we provide our fans with access to compelling ESPN and NFL content like NFL Total Access, SportsCenter highlights, PTI segments, etc. We now give you an incredibly fun and realistic football experience with the game and also provide access to compelling football news that only ESPN and the NFL Network could provide. Do players wear their own helmets in the Pro- Bowl? No, unfortunately they do not – they wear the generic NFC and AFC helmets. Are there any more attributes added to player ratings? Not this year actually…after adding new ratings consistently over the past 3 years, this year we wanted to really focus on tuning our (now rather large) current list of ratings. We have a wishlist of about 50 more ratings that we want to try and add, and hopefully we can get to some new ones each year. Are the following features included in Madden NFL 09? If not, why not? 1. In-game saves 2. Custom cameras 3. Coach mode 4. Accelerated clock No, they currently are not. These are priority calls balanced against all of the other things we wanted to accomplish this year. What’s up with no / few penalties being called? This has actually been a conscious decision for a few years because it felt cheap to randomly award penalties unless the penalty animation actually triggered and you could see it. It was one of the things we found most frustrating about old-gen, that you would get a holding penalty on say your left guard, and then you’d go into replay and there would be no actual holding penalty. In Madden NFL 09 we finally have this though – true penalty-based animations. You will see a much more realistic balance with more clipping, holding, and face-mask penalties, and the best part is that you can go into replay and actually see the penalty as it occurred. What’s up with the sidelines? Why does Head Coach 09 have such better looking sidelines? We actually did spend a lot of time getting much more sideline population and variety into Madden NFL 09. When you see the game compared to the last 3 next-gen versions, you will see that quite a bit of work did go into it (though not to the extent of Head Coach). As always, it’s a balancing act with how much time we have. When the decisions had to be made, we focused more on on-field graphics, lighting, weather, and general gameplay instead of going all-out into ultra-detailed sidelines. NFL Head Coach 09 on the other hand…much of their core gameday experience takes place on those sidelines, so that’s why they chose to spend more resources in that area. Are nano-blitzes still a problem? We’ve added back the popular slide protection feature this year as well as tuned our pass blocking AI (and animation system) extensively, so nano’s should all be preventable this year. Have spectacular catches / jet pack catches been toned down? Yes, definitely. The spectacular catches have been toned way down in terms of how powerful they are, and defenders also have a much easier chance of knocking the ball out (since the receiver is really putting himself out there on big leaping catches like that). Are Linebackers/Corners still super-human when it comes to making a play on a pass? This has been tuned way down as well. You will see MUCH more realistic defensive pass coverage / play from the linebackers and corners. They have a much harder time making plays on the ball that they don’t “see”, they react in a much more realistic time-frame to the play (using their play recognition rating) and the distance at which they can make a play on the ball in the air has been drastically tuned down…so more often than not you’ll see them try to set up for a big hit to jar the ball loose instead of warping over to swat the ball down. Do kickers still boot it way deep into the back of the endzone regularly? No, this was tuned back to much more realistic kickoff lengths. What happened to formation subs? Formation subs are back in Madden NFL 09. What happened to slide protection? Slide protection is back in Madden NFL 09. What about fatigue…how has it changed this year? Our very robust fatigue system was brand new to last year, and it has been tweaked and tuned moreso for Madden NFL 09 to provide much more accurate results. We really want to make sure defensive teams that are getting pounded on with the run game really get tired towards the end of a long drive, and we also wanted to discourage frequent fly routes and no-huddle offenses. The system was further tuned to address these issues. Have the fumble problems been addressed? Yes, this was addressed in a patch for Madden NFL 08, and those changes were carried over to Madden NFL 09. After those fixes went in, we also re- factored the way animations, ratings, and weather impacted fumbling – I think you’ll see it’s much more realistic this year. Has the O-line play been improved? If so, what has been done? Has the D-line play been improved? What are you guys doing to curve the cheating? What about those "ranker uppers", those who level up playing level 1's? Are there still moments where the receiver won’t give that extra effort to make a play? Will cut-scenes and halftime shows make a comeback this gen? Will there be playoff and Super Bowl atmosphere and cut-scenes of the Trophy Raising? ...to be answered soon... - Ian C

here's the link to this thread since i hadn't seen it posted: http://forums.ea.com/mboards/thread....hreadID=365603