Here's the deal: Madden has historically offered skill level changes via the level setting: All-Madden, All-Pro, etc. As well, setting it to Custom allowed changes to various elements of game play which, we know, could also simulate the level setting, i.e., a sub-296 (or whatever) sum of sliders maintained many of the characteristics we witnessed when playing on All-Madden (e.g., fast kick meter).
This year the interface offers a "level" setting as well as sliders. You can change the "level" setting (All Madden, Pro, All-Pro etc) and there are no changes to the sliders, neither yours nor the cpu, and vice versa (setting Level to Rookie and dropping sliders to zero leaves setting at Rookie).
Now, I've come upon a number of posts stating that "All Madden" is pretty tight this year, and others stating that it seems easy. Last night I took Cleveland against Green Bay using one of JD_Seven's early slider sets (e.g., PB 17, QBA 17/34. . .a sub 296 set). It played fine and I recognized the certain oddities that the set produced (so I know that the "sliders" were in play). But I pounded Green Bay. At one point, AR was 1/4 and they had absolutely no ground game. Colt McCoy went 8/9 45 yds. Now, I'm pretty certain that setting everything to 50 across the board isn't the root cause, as I had played a game "out of the box" with results closer to the first game mentioned.
I then exited the game, looked at some different features of the GUI and noticed that the level was at Pro or something like that. . . but that my sliders were intact. I toyed with the level and noticed no change to the sliders...then changed it to All Madden and moved the sliders to 50 across the board (initiating a test)...VERY different game. AR went 6/6 47 yards (high percentage, albeit short passes) and while their run game wasn't superb (maybe 3.3 ypc), it was smarter. Defensively, they shut me down.
So, more testing is necessary, but I'm wondering, a bug/error, or has EA finally split level and sliders, such that the sliders, affecting movement and the like, is now unique from any AI "intelligence" or am I hoping for too much? Admittedly, this is but two games, and I'm wondering what you are noticing.
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