Why are features consistently removed from year to year?

[GiantBlue76]

One of the things that has always frustrated me about Madden (on this generation) is the fact that the game never builds on itself from year to year. As critical of the game as I have been, there have been some things that I thought were really good ideas, but either were implemented very poorly or abandoned all together. What's the real reason for this? I don't see how Tiburon can ever be successful at providing us with a great game if they continue to start from the bottom each year. For instance, this is yet another year of a new animation system. What happened to the new one that was touted for madden 08? What happened to man lock? I thought that was really cool and a realistic feature. What about pro tak? Pro tak was a good concept I thought. The implementation was poor as it did not allow you to contribute to the pile up, but that would have seemed to be an easy fix for this year. Instead, nothing was done. How about presentation? We got a half time show last year, yet this year, it's completely removed. Does that sound like progress?

Field and uniform degradation was added at one point, now it's gone again. Why? What happened to adaptive AI that was to be built upon?

If Tiburon is scratching their head wondering why they get so much "hate" on forums like OS, they need not look much further than these types of questions. Madden is like a brand new game every year, where they start over with the same gameplay elements. If you don't build on what you started, you won't ever progress. I think this is where NHL and FIFA have really excelled and is why they are technically superior games to Madden. Same thing with 2k5 with football. 2k5 was a result of all of the 2k football games building on top of each other.

Being a software engineer myself, it's very difficult to write something that stands the test of time. However, it's much more difficult to build a quality product if I am making a v1.0 every release. It also won't hold the attention span or earn the respect of my customers.

So what's the reason for doing it?

[SincerelYourz]

.....the force is strong in this one.....

[PacMan3000]

I'd like to have a real discussion on this too, because I don't understand it. How did we go from one on one tackles in 2009, to Ian hyping up Pro Tak in 10, back to one on one tackles in 11?

Why is the halftime show gone (no word on the Extra Point show at all this year), or Collinsworth doesn't seem to build on his commentary from last season?

Why is Madden allowed to reset itself each year rather than progress? And why would they want to do that? Is it money related? Why would they take out parts of the game that were working last season?

[roadman]

Pro-Tak isn't out.

We will just see it less and it should become less warpy.

[SA1NT401]

every single person who plays madden would LOVE to know the answers to your questions.

Tackling has regressed to 1 on 1 ....That one really jumps out at me honestly...HUGE regression there..Back to PS1 stuff....Pro-Tak really was just a 1 year gimmick and is now an afterthought and it shows.

Would love to know those answers.....

[salbowski]

Because everything they add is usually broken in some way and it's just easier to remove it than fix it.

*** ALL NEW HAND TOWELS***

Sounds better on the back of the box than:

***FIXED BROKEN STUFF..... kinda***

[GiantBlue76]

Why isn't anyone asking these questions at press releases and at E3? I have a long list. Those would be the first ones asked, IMHO. I think it's fine that they want to add things like OTP and Gameflow. However, when you are telling me the previous year that you are laying the ground work for better things to come as you build on those "big" features (like pro-tak and online franchise, and presentation), but then you do nothing to enhance those features the following year and I watch them disappear never to be seen again, am I supposed to just forget about them?

Maybe someone who speaks to the developers can answer this. I know there are lots of folks out there who are paying customers who would love to know the answers...

[sois]

Quote: Originally Posted by tazdevil20

Why isn't anyone asking these questions at press releases and at E3?

That's what I want to know. Is E3 simply an advertising platform? Nobody EVER asks the difficult questions.