Playing defense in Madde do you think you....

[Droopy03]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

I've always felt that Madden should be seen by the NFL as an educational tool. The more educated people are on the sport of football, the better fans they become. Football is such a deep and engrossing tactical and strategic game... more so than any other sport in the world by a wide margin... that many nuances of the sport are lost on the average fan. There is no other sport where the beast head coaches/Managers are actually labeled "geniuses" with regularity. With that in mind, I would love it if (disk space permitting) there was a mode that would actually talk you through a walk through of any offensive, defensive, or special teams play, paying attention to each player's assignment, and then allowing you to run that play against different opposing plays. For example, you enter the mode, "Football 101" would be the classic name for it, and you select an play (I'll use an offensive play as an example)... say, Strong Normal Flanker Drive. The video would open by describing the protection (2-Jet). We'd get a breakdown of 2-Jet protection, as thus... "This play uses a 6-man "2 Jet" or "3 Jet" protection scheme. The HB and TE will release into their patterns, while the fullback will perform a double read to the play side. The Fullback's double read will account for the Matt and Sam backers...." etc... After running through the protection description, which'll simply be inserted into whatever play that uses it to save disk space, we move onto the play description... "Flanker Drive is a 7-step pattern designed to attack 4 across and man coverage. Your primary receiver is the flanker, who begins the play in Motion. Once he reaches a point 4-6 yards from the tight end, he will release into a drive route across the formation, continuing to the sideline, gaining about 5 yards through the box. He must get outside the far tackle as quickly as possible. The split end will run a "Go" route, looking to take the corner with him. He'll release inside against most coverages, but will release outside against a Cloud shell to create space for the Tight End's crossing route. The Tight end will release outside and run an "in" route at 12 yards. This is your secondary receiver and becomes your primary against Cloud 3. The halfback will take a free release into off the TEs right hip, gaining depth quickly and taking the strong safety to the flag at 10 yards. The combination of the Split End, Tight end, and Halfback routes should free up underneath space for the flanker to simply run away from his man and beat him." All the while, the receivers being spoken about are highlighted and their assignments against given coverages are shown. After that, it'll walk you through your reads. Basically, a breakdown of the individual assignments, plus an overview of how the play is work and what it's designed to do. This is a crappy description, but i just wanted to give an example of what I was trying to say.

Naw this was great I would love this. I would really want to see it on the defense side of the ball especially for blitizing to know exactly what or why a cetrtain player blitizes through a gap to free somebody else up etc...

[Droopy03]

Quote: Originally Posted by burne

^^^ They did almost this exact thing in Madden 05 or 06, I can't remember. Only problem was that the narration of the play was much simpler, and even then it was pretty long. This would be a content-heavy feature, and if I was a designer like Ian, the trade-off would be how much time do you spend making sure that all of the play descriptions are accurate and useful for hundreds of plays versus how many people will actually give this even a cursory glance, you know? I mean, I'm all for it, it'd even help me learn some stuff, but I just don't see people using it. I would love to see something like this be in Superstar, actually, if you can imagine your player getting position-specific coaching in practice where they explain your reads and assignments for a play and then you run it a few times. They'd start with your team's most frequently run plays and move down the list, maybe go back to work on plays you execute poorly week-to-week, etc. Another way that I think they could incorporate football education into the game is to deepen the "Ask Madden" option when play-calling. When you hit "Ask Madden" and it shows a play, rather than playing some pointless Madden audio clip, have him say something truly relevant to why this play is chosen. Perhaps it could work like EA Backtrack, where every 10-20 plays, it'll provide some statistical breakdowns of what is happening along with a good tip on how to change your play-calling. "You've blitzed 75% of the time with only 1 sack and 2 hurries, while your opponent has repeatedly taken advantage of quick throws to wide open receivers, who are averaging 6.4 YPC. Drop your team into a Cover 2 and force him to squeeze the ball into tighter windows or deeper downfield to take advantage of your talented safeties."

You know what this sounds great as well. We should have the ask Madden as a plus not just part of the game. This guy is a hall of famer we should not just be able to ask him on every play but maybe just 3 times a game. Maybe ask for some advise of what he is seeing thats going on and to correct it.