Madden NFL 25 Next-Gen War in the Trenches Q&A with Clint Oldenburg

[NDAlum]

Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_OS;2045580781[I

The QB now must step up into the pocket rather than extend his drop which fundamentally changes the way Madden is played.[/i]

If true I will be very happy. However I will temper expectations because of the past.

[dghustla]

Quote: Originally Posted by wordtobigbird

Speaking of the topic of "biggest" change. It reminds me of FIFA. I recently got FIFA 14 for PC. I don't watch soccer. I played FIFA 13 because I always heard about how good/fun it is so I decided to try it and I enjoyed it. I enjoy FIFA much more than Madden and I of course love the NFL. Literally, the only thing I watch all day is NFL network and Football games. I don't even get cable because I only need one channel. Wake up, NFLN stream, start my day. So yeah, if I could enjoy a NFL game I would be ecstatic. Anyway, even with that disparity I play the soccer game over the football game. FIFA is doing A LOT right that Madden needed to steal yesterday. Anyway, back to the point. After playing one game of FIFA 14, the biggest change is the feel of the player movement and the way they interact with each other and the ball. If you watched videos of both you probably can't even tell much of a difference graphically. But as soon as you get control you FEEL the difference. It's hard to explain but the players feel heavier. I haven't even read much about FIFA 14 changes tbh, my friend told me they "changed the physics". Whatever they did feels amazing. The difference is night and day between FIFA 13 and FIFA 14. This needs to be Maddens biggest change. Madden took a good step in the right direction with M25 because the feel of controlling of the runners is greatly improved compared to M13 but they don't feel like they feel when running in FIFA. Weird to say but the EA team at FIFA has soccer players feeling heavier than football players lol. Madden needs to implement an engine that can emulate physics. Infinity is cool but it isnt it. It helps with the interaction animations but its not doing **** for size/momentum playing a factor in player movement AND interaction. You can still take a 180 lb player straight into and over a 300 lb guy that he couldnt move if he had 5 minutes. Or change direction/spin/juke with a 250lb back just as you do with any other. Madden's player movement is completely ratings based and actual physics plays no part. Not to mention REAL pass trajectory. If FIFA can do it I would hope EA can share the technology with itself and help Madden do something similar. I recommend if anyone play FIFA 14 and check it out, even better if you could play 13 then 14 and feel the difference.

i actually posted about this 2 pages earlier. I got a chance to play the Fifa 14 demo on PS4 yesterday. And the biggest thing that jumped out to me was how the players felt. Momentum was present and the collisions looked great and very natural. The players felt like they had true weight. I was looking at their ankles to see how they planted and the reaction with each step.

Overall I didn't feel like there was a huge graphical jump (but who knows what version of the game I was playing) but the player movement looked a lot more fluid. If madden players move and feel like that the game will be much better.

One of the best things FIFA does which I hope Madden will emulate (I dont know if it will be this year) is what I call organic contact. When going for a none sliding tackle you see the defender reach out with his arm to grab the ball carrier. This is how blocks should work in madden the Olineman should be reaching out to grab the blitzer and not suction as others have said. Also this system and the header system should be used for the passing game.

The best analogy i can use would be to compare the feel of the players to driving cars in GTAV. you know the difference between a Range Rover, Suburban and Escalade. Their all SUVs but each feels much different in terms of acceleration and handling. When they collide with other objects the reactions vary depending on what they hit, current speed, angle of impact, etc. That's how the players felt in FIFA. Hopefully with their help Madden on pS4 will feel like this. Based on what they've said in their interviews I actually expect the players to feel like this we'll know in 3 weeks.

[Dogslax41]

Quote: Originally Posted by dat swag

In the grand scheme of things this sim community is a mere blip on the economic screen when it comes to Madden sales. My point is other than the complaints here nobody else cared or probably even noticed outside of a few gaming beat writers and the hardcore folks. As far as the video being released...Well, if you think there is some open line of communication going on between EA and ESPN concerning a video being released on MNF I would almost guess that there is not...Some random intern was given a task to put up the MNF EA Madden Next Gen video and that's exactly what they did...Its not like EA and ESPN are having a staff meeting on how to best present the video. Just because these are two big and important companies don't assume they are communicating effectively. The only real uproar about the video was from hardcore gamers which is a very small minority of the people who purchase Madden. Its not as big a deal as we made it here..We are in the minority.

Madden was blasted across every consumer group after that video was revealed. It had nothing to do with the "sim" crowd. It was diagnosed and cut apart ad nausea on OS, other sites didn't care enough to dissect it. They just called it garbage and moved on. Kotaku is not a sim site and had one of the most condemning articles. There were also harshly negative reviews across all mediums not just "gamer" sites.

You can't honestly believe that after seeing a 40% drop off in Madden sales and taking a hit from investors that a company counting on recovering sales and restoring faith from investors with next gen sales is going to leave their first video reveal to an intern. Come on man. EA and ESPN most certainly had multiple meetings about the video. EA and ESPN have marketing departments for this very reason. Even so, if by some unknown reason EA decided that all of a sudden video marketing wasn’t a big deal to sales and didn’t think they needed to pay any attention to the campaign going out why would a second video with the exact same mistakes be released?

[Kaiser Wilhelm]

Quote: Originally Posted by Sausage

Just like in real football, it's all about the execution of the play; what is scary about Madden devs they never quite execute the whole play and score that big TD. Instead we get a 3 and out, muffed punts, and turnover on downs. Though we tune in each every August because we think they're turning the corner and at any moment about to break the BIG ONE.

So EA Tiburon are the Buffalo Bills?

[wordtobigbird]

Quote: Originally Posted by spacedog

I know it's only words at this point but I think they did bring up specifically an example of a db or something running into an olinemen and having a bigger struggle to get past or through, whereas a dline men would be able to push the olinemen back as you would expect since they have similar builds. So maybe they might be implementing something like that.

I hope so but it most likely just ratings based (they give DBs lower strength than Dlineman to create this effect). There is still no physics engine behind the scenes controlling how ALL players move and interact.

[wordtobigbird]

Quote: Originally Posted by dghustla

i actually posted about this 2 pages earlier. I got a chance to play the Fifa 14 demo on PS4 yesterday. And the biggest thing that jumped out to me was how the players felt. Momentum was present and the collisions looked great and very natural. The players felt like they had true weight. I was looking at their ankles to see how they planted and the reaction with each step. Overall I didn't feel like there was a huge graphical jump (but who knows what version of the game I was playing) but the player movement looked a lot more fluid. If madden players move and feel like that the game will be much better. One of the best things FIFA does which I hope Madden will emulate (I dont know if it will be this year) is what I call organic contact. When going for a none sliding tackle you see the defender reach out with his arm to grab the ball carrier. This is how blocks should work in madden the Olineman should be reaching out to grab the blitzer and not suction as others have said. Also this system and the header system should be used for the passing game. The best analogy i can use would be to compare the feel of the players to driving cars in GTAV. you know the difference between a Range Rover, Suburban and Escalade. Their all SUVs but each feels much different in terms of acceleration and handling. When they collide with other objects the reactions vary depending on what they hit, current speed, angle of impact, etc. That's how the players felt in FIFA. Hopefully with their help Madden on pS4 will feel like this. Based on what they've said in their interviews I actually expect the players to feel like this we'll know in 3 weeks.

Exactly. Hopefully Madden can pull this off at some point sooner rather than later. If Madden 25 has this and they just haven't advertised it I would be shocked.

[dghustla]

Quote: Originally Posted by wordtobigbird

Exactly. Hopefully Madden can pull this off at some point sooner rather than later. If Madden 25 has this and they just haven't advertised it I would be shocked.

In the true reveal that is what they said is going to be the case. I really hope so. I want to feel the different between running with Brandon Jacobs and lowering the shoulder into a crowd off backers. And chris johnson. There should be a noticeable different when collisions take place at high speeds with these players.

[hort22]

this


what's biggest difference in next gen ?

The QB now must step up into the pocket rather than extend his drop which fundamentally changes the way Madden is played.


finally!