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A Reality Check About Game Development

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Old 04-02-2012, 09:15 PM   #41
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by MiNiDiTkA
Quote:
Originally Posted by LBzrule
I don't like the technological decision they made in 2005 ... continues to impact the game right now.
Please explain.
The decision to build NG Madden from scratch for the 360 launch still has an effect on the series today.

For 3 years, the devs went in the wrong direction - it took another 3 years to get back to even. By that logic, Madden 12 is the first 'real' NG Madden any of us has played. It's the first to have most of the tactical features available on PS2's Madden '05 title.

(NG Madden '06 and '07 had no defensive play maker - Madden 12 is the first NG game with DB shading.)

I'm sure LBz will elaborate on other aspects as well...

Later
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Old 04-02-2012, 09:31 PM   #42
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by TNT713
The generality of my posts is intentional. People who read them get in where they fit in. Sometimes they make great points about valid issues that are far reaching within the game - sometimes they are, to use a term used earlier, 'criminally uninformed' about how to use the tools EA provides.

For instance, DB Shading is a new feature to NG as of Madden 12. It was discussed at length in many communities in the months prior to release, there is a display on screen whenever making a coverage audible ( X/A for Individual Assignments), and it's mentioned on one of the pre-game loading screens that appear before games.

Yet, even seasoned Madden players who play competitively and often haven't been aware of the tactic's availability. So few in fact, that I've seen the technique used in less than 10 of my 200+ games this year (360 and PS3 included). In this instance, there's little reason to be angry at EA. The tool is available, it works, and isn't overly effective when you have a good football plan.

Could the tools be better? ABSOLUTELY! But it is ultimately up to us to employ any tools EA gives us to simulate football according to our knowledge and abilities. Let's have another example:

When I was at CD, I spoke to several devs about improving the tools - one in particular is the Slide Protect functions. While I can't discuss the M13 changes, I can talk about M12's shortcomings:



Because of this issue you can't slide your line to the right and tell the back to block the back side on M12. If the end man rushes he's free virtually every time (one reason I rarely slide left/right). IMO, this is a minor problem easily overcome by motioning a player to the side of the free rusher (depending on your formation) and having him try to block a LB or DE.

To me - that shouldn't be necessary.


O-line blocking assignments should be separate from my back's blocking assignments. On day 2 at CD, I discussed this at length with the play designer. He then elaborated about how the Slide Protect would be changing AND which NFL personalities critiqued and helped them redesign the slide protect functions for Madden 13. To make a long story short - the tools will improve but I'm not sure whether the backs blocking assignments will be separate or not - that's one thing I'm still waiting to see (didn't get to test it while I was there).

That said, the average Madden player doesn't know the basic premise of how DB Shading nor Slide Protect work on the field and will be unable to maximize the effectiveness of those tools to simulate the football we desire most. Not EA's fault.

Even if there was a tutorial included in the game (which EA would be wise to provide as an additional tool) that relayed this information, it wouldn't apply in every case because some formations simply don't have a back for this issue to effect. That said, I don't think the average Madden player would use the tutorial even if EA allotted resources to create one - evidenced by the number of players that aren't aware of new features that are added.

Also, when I'm making these generalities about Madden players - I'm not excluded. Once upon a time, I didn't get the most out of the tools EA provided - that's one reason I'm so hard on users. I'm a user. Furthermore, I'm a user who has dedicated his leisure time learning to getting the most out of every tool EA provides so I'm never caught with my virtual pants down.

My expectations of users may be a little too high - but I prefer that to them being too low.

My expectations for EA are equally as high to improve the tool set. One thing is sure - it's 10x more difficult to make a game for users when they don't take time to learn the buttons, how they work, what they do, or put forth the effort to use them. It's even harder to have a decent discussion with them because they take more than 2 decades of observations personally - especially when the adjectives they use to describe the devs effort are more reflective of their own effort.

To recap, creating games as complicated as Madden where the user is expected to be at least familiar with football and how the tools EA provides simulate football is unduly difficult when players have not committed every adjustment (See "Complete List of Madden Controls") to their muscle memory AND their mental memory.

As hard as I am on users, I have to admit: Not even TNT uses them all.

Later
I am not going to debate whether or not I agree with your post, because it is pointless. My biggest issue with this post is that you are posting the same thing over-and-over again and trying to "fit" the same response into every thread you post in. This thread was about game development and Madden, and yet you keep finding a way to shoehorn in your same "EA tools/users suck" argument that we have heard washed, rinsed and repeated far too many times. This thread is not about how much time you put into learning how to play Madden, how you use the "supposed" plethora of tools present in Madden, how awesome TNT713 is at playing Madden or what TNT713 does or doesn't use. I really wish you would give that stuff a rest man, it just doesn't fit here and we have heard this same story 100 times before.

Last edited by Illustrator76; 04-02-2012 at 09:36 PM.
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Old 04-02-2012, 09:39 PM   #43
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by Illustrator76
I am not going to debate whether or not I agree with your post, because it is pointless. My biggest issue with this post is that you are posting the same thing over-and-over again and trying to "fit" the same response into every thread you post in. This thread was about game development and Madden, and yet you keep finding a way to shoehorn in your same "EA tools/users suck" argument that we have heard washed, rinsed and repeated far too many times. This thread is not about how much time you put into learning how to play Madden, how you use the "supposed" plethora of tools present in Madden or how awesome TNT713 is at playing Madden. I really wish you would give that stuff a rest man, it just doesn't fit here and we have heard this same story 100 times before.
Did you listen to the "SIM Nation" radio show the OP posted in the OP starting at the 27:00 mark?

If you did, but still see no relevance of the comments I posted - I apologize for not communicating clearly. If you didn't - maybe you should listen to the show.

Later
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Old 04-02-2012, 10:05 PM   #44
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by TNT713
Did you listen to the "SIM Nation" radio show the OP posted in the OP starting at the 27:00 mark?

If you did, but still see no relevance of the comments I posted - I apologize for not communicating clearly. If you didn't - maybe you should listen to the show.

Later
I did and it doesn't. Sorry man, I just see you trying to argue the same points we have heard time and time again, just because you like to argue. The thread was talking about the reasons for the lack of improvement of Madden year-to-year (in numerous areas), and here you go talking about User error, how TNT713 can devote so much time to learning, studying and playing Madden ball and all of these supposed "EA tools" in Madden 12.

Quote:
Originally Posted by LBzrule
Basically the engine(s) the game are running on. I thought they would work with something more advanced. But it just seems like they selected the next level version of PS2 Madden game engine that allows them to do animations a little better but not to the extent where I thought we would be by now. Allows them to do graphics a lot better. But their commentary is worse now than it was on PS2 IMO. Presentation aspects are a lot better. But back to animations. The tackling still has not even matched 2k5 and I'm starting to believe that it will not because of the technological decisions made at the start. You still cannot influence the tackle and you still have no control on offense of breaking out of a tackle. No reach tackles, ala 2k8. No defenders being engaged and also reaching out with one arm to influence HB movement and sometimes make tackles ala 2k8. The EA team chose to go with short animations rather than long ones. In a football game I'm not sure if the former is the way to go. It just hasn't looked the part. Things looked telegraphed, choreographed rather than 22 guys getting after one another.

When the ball is snapped in football you should see destruction. In Madden NCAA it looks like guys are telegraphing ballet dancing. They try to make up for it by giving you Hit Stick and violent hits (often times too many) but everything before that just doesn't appear like football. Nobody moves with explosion. WR's jog off the line, OL and DL do not lunge and for lack of better language explode/collide with one another. To me it has a great deal to do with the technology decisions and design decisions that have been made. Again, what you start with limits what you can do later.
LBz post right here is what this thread is about (the lack of progress made in every area of Madden year-to-year) and it illustrates how your last few posts in no way, shape or form coincide with the subject of this thread.

Oh well, another good thread heading in the wrong direction all of the sudden. I'm just going to walk away now.

Last edited by Illustrator76; 04-02-2012 at 10:23 PM.
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Old 04-02-2012, 10:15 PM   #45
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by Illustrator76
I did and it doesn't. Sorry man, I just see you trying to argue the same points we have heard time and time again, just because you like to argue. The thread was talking about the reasons for the lack of improvement of Madden year-to-year (in numerous areas), and here you go talking about User error, how TNT713 can devote so much time to learning, studying and playing Madden ball and all of these supposed "EA tools" in Madden 12.
Sorry if my stance bothers you, but it isn't going to change. Feel free to put me on your ignore list at your earliest convenience. I'll return the favor - otherwise one of us may say something we regret...

Later
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Old 04-02-2012, 10:40 PM   #46
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by LBzrule
Basically the engine(s) the game are running on. I thought they would work with something more advanced. But it just seems like they selected the next level version of PS2 Madden game engine that allows them to do animations a little better but not to the extent where I thought we would be by now. Allows them to do graphics a lot better. But their commentary is worse now than it was on PS2 IMO. Presentation aspects are a lot better. But back to animations. The tackling still has not even matched 2k5 and I'm starting to believe that it will not because of the technological decisions made at the start. You still cannot influence the tackle and you still have no control on offense of breaking out of a tackle. No reach tackles, ala 2k8. No defenders being engaged and also reaching out with one arm to influence HB movement and sometimes make tackles ala 2k8. The EA team chose to go with short animations rather than long ones. In a football game I'm not sure if the former is the way to go. It just hasn't looked the part. Things looked telegraphed, choreographed rather than 22 guys getting after one another.

When the ball is snapped in football you should see destruction. In Madden NCAA it looks like guys are telegraphing ballet dancing. They try to make up for it by giving you Hit Stick and violent hits (often times too many) but everything before that just doesn't appear like football. Nobody moves with explosion. WR's jog off the line, OL and DL do not lunge and for lack of better language explode/collide with one another. To me it has a great deal to do with the technology decisions and design decisions that have been made. Again, what you start with limits what you can do later.
Thanks for the explanation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TNT713
The decision to build NG Madden from scratch for the 360 launch still has an effect on the series today.

For 3 years, the devs went in the wrong direction - it took another 3 years to get back to even. By that logic, Madden 12 is the first 'real' NG Madden any of us has played. It's the first to have most of the tactical features available on PS2's Madden '05 title.

(NG Madden '06 and '07 had no defensive play maker - Madden 12 is the first NG game with DB shading.)

I'm sure LBz will elaborate on other aspects as well...

Later
The more you know Thanks.

Last edited by MiNiDiTkA; 04-02-2012 at 10:45 PM.
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Old 04-03-2012, 01:23 AM   #47
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

While it's interesting to see this discussion, and I'll follow it, at the end of the day consumers shouldn't have to worry about this stuff -- you can't expect consumers to really care about it either.

jWILL hits it on the nose here:
Quote:
"The worst thing you can do, as a developer, musician, film director, or whatever, is try to tell the fans of your product what that can or cannot be mad about."
Either the game is good or it isn't. All the time should be spent on that before talking about the job of developing the game itself. If people are interested in game development, then by all means talk and find out about that and better understand it, but it shouldn't change how you look at final products. (And I think that was the overall point here when the thread was started, which is good.)

I would think a better understanding of game development would help people give ideas in a more constructive way, but if people troll etc. you just pick out the actual bits of information that aren't dripping in slobbery troll juices and use that information to try and learn and improve from there.

In general, constructive criticism is obviously better than douchery, but boy do I love being a snarky butthole sooooo I get why others do the same -- just be good at it if you're going to do it.
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Old 04-03-2012, 03:21 AM   #48
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Re: A Reality Check About Game Development

Quote:
Originally Posted by jWILL10
Nobody buys Call of Duty saying things like "I know that I don't like some things about this game, but I'ma buy it anyway because those developers worked really hard."
I'm trying to figure out when anyone said anything like this or that this should be the way people think...

Don't like the product, don't buy it - when is anyone saying "buy it because they worked hard on it"?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TNT713
Because of this issue you can't slide your line to the right and tell the back to block the back side on M12. If the end man rushes he's free virtually every time (one reason I rarely slide left/right). IMO, this is a minor problem easily overcome by motioning a player to the side of the free rusher (depending on your formation) and having him try to block a LB or DE.
Wait...you're saying that having to put a man in motion instead of being able to actually call a true, realistic protection scheme is a minor problem?

Quote:
Originally Posted by PGaither84
I know that making a game isn't easy, but saying "it's hard" isn't a good enough excuse to me.

I think there are a lot of talented programers that work at EA Tiburon... but I also personally think there are some who are NOT that talented. I am not going to name names, but I think that Michael Young, and Josh Looman are examples of very talented individuals. We can talk about the way the game moves, but visually, the game LOOKS incredible. The lighting, textures, details, etc. Michael Young [and I assume his team] do a fantastic job. Franchise always ned work and tuning, but as we have seen from last gen, to Head Coach, to the improvements in Madden 12 and the success of MUT, Josh really puts THE MAN in Looman.
How do we know it's developer talent and not publisher influence/inability/imposed direction causing this?

The folks who made FBPro '98 were talented. Sierra sucked so bad it no longer exists (and UbiSoft will probably follow soon enough, or at least I kind of hope so), taking FBPro and Lords of the Realm, Baseball Pro, and Lords of Magic with it.

I don't think the developers are the demise of those games - Sierra's horrid-ness was.

While every team probably has "weak links", I'm not so quick to assume that the publisher has zero to do with things other than to hand out money and set release dates.

Now if Madden was indy (like Markus of OOTP) and or publisher/developer like Atlus, NIS, or Square-Enix, then that might be different.
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Last edited by KBLover; 04-03-2012 at 03:51 AM.
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