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Banned
OVR: 13
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: WI
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10 Things We Hate about Madden, part 2 (#5-1)
5) Controls
This is #1 on my list, but the group of us as a whole feels that if EA can fix it so that the pre-snap menus do not dissappear when you customize the controls the we can live with it!
All of this group feels like the last gen controls were nearly perfect and far more realistic due to the fact you had to "let off the gas" in order to spin, dive, jump, or perform R-stick moves.
The biggest part to me is the way they destroyed the D Playmaker/ Hot Routes. Too many button hits required in the NG system really limits you on D, and the old system allowed you to individually bump one receiver, play off another and shade yet another. The legacy gen could be slightly altered to include the "hurdle" on triangle, allow directional stiff arms, and still have a "cover ball" functionality. If anyone at EA wants to know how they can PM me and I will break it down for them.
Another thing that bugs me is EA has not fully utilized the "pressure sensitivity" of the buttons. I have always felt that the animations should be divided up into 3s for every button just like passing is. For example, if you throw to a reciever and switch to control him - you could "tap" the button if you are all alone to get a "in-stride" type animation, "press" the button to get a quick "jump and catch" animation, and lastly you could hold the button (which would slow down the WR/TE and have him "gather") to get a higher jump in order to meet the ball at it's highest point. Now, within that the ratings have to be relevant, so the higher the player's JMP rating the higher he can go and the longer you can "hold" the button. In order to balance this with risk/reward, they could add some slip/trip/stumble animations so that if you held it too long your player would fall or take himself out of position. The way you balance it on D is give the defenders the same setup and have the "swat" be less risky.
4) NCAA Draft Import
We all love this feature, but it needs some "tweaking". The ratings drops that players suffer make no sense. The addition of "position specific ratings" makes this all the more irritating. Players should transfer straight over, for the most part, in the "physical" ratings. SPD, ACC, AGI, JMP and THP should be dropped no more than 1-3 points. STR. PBK, RBK, CAR, CTH should drop between 4-8 points, and then the "position" ratings like THA, ELU, TRK, TAK, POW, MCV, ZCV, PRS, PMV, FMV, BSH, PUR, PRC, RLS, SPC, CIT, RBF, PBF, AWR, etc etc should drop between 10-19 points. This would give rookies lower OVR ratings and yet not "physically hamstring" them. I hate seeing a 99 SPD or 99 STR player from NCAA end up with a 95 in Madden. Some of this directly relates to progression which I'll hit on in a minute.
3)Injuries/ Refs/ Chain Gang/ Sidelines/ Fans/ Camera Tricks
Basically atmosphere issues, but these together can absolutely kill the "suspension of disbelief". It has been said many times on this and other forums that "real time injuries" is an issue. The only thing we want to add is it would be cool for minor injuries to see the guy walk off the field tapping his helmet, for moderate to severe it would be cool to see the "medical/ training staff" go onto the field to examine the player, and for the severe injuries that include blow tendons, broken legs, neck injuries, or severe concussions they should be "carted" off the field. No ambulance running guys over, just the cart taking the guy off.
The refs, chain gangs, and sideline interaction are all things that we should not have to "nag" EA to get right. And we should not have to tell them that the crowds need some serious attention, not graphically from our view, but the audio needs some serious tuning in appropriateness and volume.
The reason this is so high on the list is the overwhelming disdain this group has for "camera tricks". The "breakaway cam", the "FB dive fake HB toss cam" and the "fake reverse cam" are annoying as hell. The PA deal is OK, but outside of that the camera tricks gotta go. They completely ruin the immersion into the game.
The draw plays need to eliminate the icons over the FB and RB so that it is like they are gonna stay in to block, cuz it ruins any hope you have of reading the hole. The RB should actually "breakdown" for a second like he is going to block and then the QB should put the ball in his gut. Again these should at least be toggles that you can turn off, cuz they kill the "feel" of the game!
2) DB vs WR and OL vs DL interaction
The OL vs DL thing really sucks and they know it, so I am not gonna beat it to death. We do want to say that we should not have to manually control a 95+ player for his presence to be felt on the DL. D lineman should perform spins, bull rushes, swims, rips and speed moves (shoulder dip) on their own and according to their ratings. If I have a dominant DL the other guy should know it, unless he has a dominant OL to counter them.
The WR vs DB thing kills us. One year the deep ball is too easy, so the next year EA makes it nearly impossible to complete deep passes. One year the DBs have the advantage, then the next the WRs are too good. We know this has got to be one of the most difficult things to balance, but let's find a good balance and then leave it alone for a while. I really think if they went with my "pressure sensitive" control idea, and "tweaked" the DB AI so that the CPU controlling your DBs would be able to counter and allow you to switch and manually counter that would work. The thing that EA seems to do is nueter the deep ball to the point where even the wrong defensive play call has a good chance of preventing the deep ball. 90 spd DBs should not be able to cover 99 spd WRs all the way down field 1 on 1. Now they really need to bring back Defensive Assignments with this, and the DBs should have a big advantage in double team situations, but as with all things it needs to be balanced and more dependent on player ratings. Play calling needs to be a part here too. If you have 2 deep safeties, and you double the "deep threat" and the guy still throws it there, he should be looking at an incomplete as a best case scenario. I think too many times guys get beat online by Moss, who they have some 95 spd guy covering 1 on 1 and they come to the forums and cry foul. Well if the WR is 5 inches taller than your DB and significantly faster, then you better give him help or get great pressure or he is going to lose that match up. Football is a simple game, its just running, throwing, and tackling... ...and play calls and matchups and strategy and the bounce of the ball and the grace of the football gods and...
1) Progression
Franchise mode is the only mode worth playing. There seems to be this idea around the forums that franchise mode is a dominantly single player mode, well that is FICTION. Two years ago I conducted a survey at Gamestop. I was there from 10 pm thru the midnight release party and the following day for several hours. One of the questions was what is your preferred mode of game play. There were 7 answers which they were asked to rank from 1 to 7, of 157 respondents 113 listed multi-user franchise as their #1 preference!
The progression needs an overhaul. It most likely will require added player ratings. The mini games need to be eliminated from the equation. They heavily favor stick skills, already fast players, and users that have more free time to work with. Now in the past we have tried the "gentleman's rule" by saying the mini games are off limits, but that is like telling MLB players that HGH is banned, but "oh, by the way, we have no test for it". EA needs to at least include a toggle so we can turn these off, but I think the community as a whole would prefer a better system altogether.
I like the idea of adding "hidden ratings" to the players. Something like what they have done with HC concerning "potential" and adding in "work ethic", "film study", "ego/personality", and maybe "passion/drive". Then you expand the coach's ratings and add in the STR/Conditioning coaches. The ratings of your coaching staff would determine the success rate of your input for the off season program. The better the coach and player mesh "personality" wise could be used as a variable within the success chance. Players would have "progression bumps" built in to there 1st 3 years in the NFL, the higher the player's "potential" the higher the bumps. Players would get better in this way even while on the bench. Players with low "potential" would not progress as quickly and would have a "cap" to their OVR rating. On field production would still play a part, but players would be limited by the potential rating and production would only slightly quicken the player's rise to their full potential.
In the off-season you would have a set of sliders for each position group where you could task all players at a given position to work on certain aspects of their game. Once you set the position group, you could go in and "tweak" the individual's sliders to be more specific to him. Again the ratings would affect the success of your directives.
Part of this should be that all players hgt/wghts should be "locked" once you start a franchise. One of the sliders would be add/drop wght. Dropping could hurt STR, BSH etc etc, but improve (slightly) ACC, AGI etc etc.
Then you would have numerous other sliders that would allow you to focus the player's off season training.
STR work, AGI drills, Film Study, plyometrics (JMP) etc etc...
The ratings of your coaches/ training staff would determine the base "points" for the position groups. The HC's and player's personality "compatibility" would determine the "bonus points" available for the individual players. This would encourage you to keep a good staff, allow player's "physical ratings" to be revealed in the form of accurate "times" from the combine, but force you to hire a better "scouting staff" (hint hint) in order to reveal the player's personality and potential attributes. I think this system, or one similar to it would be much faster,much more realistic, and far more rewarding than the one EA has in place!
A note about "Training Camp" - TC should be broken down into 3 weeks and 2 styles on a toggle;
Slider Style - you would have sliders that would control your:
Conditioning Emphasis - push too hard = rash of hammy inj
too soft = lower fatigue
Practice balance - too much contact = inj risk
too little contact = TAK/ BLK ratings down
Film Work/ Meetings - too much = AWR hit from "burnout"
too little = ??? add your idea
Game Style - 3 "scrimmages" in the form of games.
You would pick 3 CPU teams and play shortened games on the practice field in "hats and shells" with minimal contact or full pads with higher INJ risk. Varied use of your playbooks would equal an AWR boost and use of backups could affect their AWR vs the starter's fatigue.
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07-12-2008, 02:31 AM
