Why can't you play any player out of position on Madden?

[SA1NT401]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

I refuse to believe that people are able to have successful passing games with a punter at quarterback on any reasonable difficulty level when I could tell a blatantly obvious difference between playing with Tony Romo, Jon Kitna, Stephen McGee, and Terrelle Pryor - all true quarterbacks. This whole "ratings mean nothing" nonsense needs to stop, because it's simply misguided and wrong. To the topic, the depth chart limitations I'd guess are legacy artifacts of last-generation designs where EA games had no effective counters for scrambling quarterbacks and skill players playing out-of-position. Given that the game has become much smarter, this is probably something they should consider revisiting.

I had to finish a game with Tom tupa a few years ago when both QBs went down. He finished with close to 250yds and 4 TDs.

My buddy still remembers it vividly.

[jeremym480]

Quote: Originally Posted by Multi

The Ravens have used Haloti Ngata at fullback, the Cardinals have used Antrel Rolle as a wildcat quarterback. Situations like these aren't a common occurrence, but they do happen. There is no "football" reason for this feature to not be implemented, there is only a videogame reason - a Madden reason to be more precise. The game is broken as it is, adding a feature like this would only break it further.

This is simply not true. Take another sports games, UFC 3, for instance. The game is also a "sim" which is why the devs locked all the weight classes. However there's a glitch in Event Mode in which you can choose open-weigh fights. The problem is that ability's like strength (for example) are relative to their respective weight classes, so you would have guys who weighted rated 90 in the Lightweight division who were as strong as guys who were rated 90 in the Heavyweight division who out weighted them by 100 pounds.

Disregarding that the game in no more, should the devs have taken valuable development time to a matchup like that more realistic? In my opinion, the answer is no. The game is supposed to be a "UFC Simulation" and you wouldn't see a 155 pound lightweight fight a 260 pound heavyweight.

The point is this isn't just something that EA or Madden does. Besides, they have waaaaay too many other things to worry about (especially since they're adding in the Infinity Engine and CCM) to have time to cater to people who basically want do silly things like playing a kicker at offensive tackle or a DT at WR or whatever. I'm no programmer or anything, but that seems to me like you would have to add a bunch of new animations for ridiculous moves like that and I for one would rather them focus on other thing before doing that.

Maybe in the future they could look into opening it up a bit more because like you said players playing in strange positions does happen. Although it just isn't common enough for them to set as a top priority.

Quote: Originally Posted by SA1NT401

I had to finish a game with Tom tupa a few years ago when both QBs went down. He finished with close to 250yds and 4 TDs. My buddy still remembers it vividly.

Normally a post like this deserves a "pic or it didn't happen type comment", however since Tom Tupa retired in 2004, then a really don't see how it's relevant to the discussion at hand. Perhaps you could attempt to put up numbers like that in Madden 12 or in 13 (in a few weeks) and get back to us.

[Multi]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeremym480

This is simply not true. Take another sports games, UFC 3, for instance. The game is also a "sim" which is why the devs locked all the weight classes. However there's a glitch in Event Mode in which you can choose open-weigh fights. The problem is that ability's like strength (for example) are relative to their respective weight classes, so you would have guys who weighted rated 90 in the Lightweight division who were as strong as guys who were rated 90 in the Heavyweight division who out weighted them by 100 pounds. Disregarding that the game in no more, should the devs have taken valuable development time to a matchup like that more realistic? In my opinion, the answer is no. The game is supposed to be a "UFC Simulation" and you wouldn't see a 155 pound lightweight fight a 260 pound heavyweight. The point is this isn't just something that EA or Madden does. Besides, they have waaaaay too many other things to worry about (especially since they're adding in the Infinity Engine and CCM) to have time to cater to people who basically want do silly things like playing a kicker at offensive tackle or a DT at WR or whatever. I'm no programmer or anything, but that seems to me like you would have to add a bunch of new animations for ridiculous moves like that and I for one would rather them focus on other thing before doing that. Maybe in the future they could look into opening it up a bit more because like you said players playing in strange positions does happen. Although it just isn't common enough for them to set as a top priority.

Your UFC example highlights the issue this would create in Madden perfectly. Because the engine is sub-standard, enabling players to play out of position would break the game.
Having a setup like this in a UFC game is fine because you'd never see fighters from different weight classes facing each other in the actual sport.
With NFL, you do see it which is why Madden should be able to replicate it.

Also, I hate to speak of the devil, but yes, 2K5 allowed this and it worked fairly well.

And come on, other than making a mess, what does Tiburon use this "valuable development time" for?

[CRMosier_LM]

Quote: Originally Posted by Skyboxer

People slam EA with not being realistic and then complain when you can't do something unrealistic. The level of hypocricy is astounding sometimes. Yes it would be nice to be able to put whoever where but when/if theres some sort of issue that causes a problem by doing it EA would get slammed for allowing it. Another case of cant win for losing.

Head.... Me nail.... Nail... Meet your doom.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[TheLaw1989]

It's not uncommon for players to play at positions that they can't in Madden. The Patriots often used Mike Vrael at Tight End in goalline sets. You can't play a LB at TE in Madden. The 49ers used Isaac Sopaga at TE last year. Can't do that in Madden. B.J. Raji, Haloti Ngata, and William Perry were all Defensive Tackles who saw snaps at Fullback. Aaron Hernandez played snaps at Running Back for the Patriots last year. Ndamukong Suh attempted a Field Goal for the Lions two years ago. I've seen situations where teams had to play Defensive Lineman on the Offensive Line because they had run out of OL to play.

They've made the game less realistic by restricting the positions that players can play.

[1D4ever]

Quote: Originally Posted by Multi

Your UFC example highlights the issue this would create in Madden perfectly. Because the engine is sub-standard, enabling players to play out of position would break the game. Having a setup like this in a UFC game is fine because you'd never see fighters from different weight classes facing each other in the actual sport. With NFL, you do see it which is why Madden should be able to replicate it. Also, I hate to speak of the devil, but yes, 2K5 allowed this and it worked fairly well. And come on, other than making a mess, what does Tiburon use this "valuable development time" for?

Strange my 2k5 did not allow you to do this, in fact you could not even edit any player position at all in 2k5 where as in Madden 2005 you could to a degree. In this are 2k5 was actually more limted than Madden.

[gjneff]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeremym480

Besides, they have waaaaay too many other things to worry about (especially since they're adding in the Infinity Engine and CCM) to have time to cater to people who basically want do silly things like playing a kicker at offensive tackle or a DT at WR or whatever.

You're jumping to the extremes when there are plenty of realistic situations that happen in NFL regularly that you can't do in madden. Has nothing to do with wanting to cheese as you're suggesting.

[Multi]

Quote: Originally Posted by 1D4ever

Strange my 2k5 did not allow you to do this, in fact you could not even edit any player position at all in 2k5 where as in Madden 2005 you could to a degree. In this are 2k5 was actually more limted than Madden.

Obviously you never touched the 'Substitutions' menu, because you could go in there and sub any player into any position for any package. You could have Peyton Manning return punts if you wanted to.

If I was using the Pats I'd always chuck Vrabel at TE2 in heavy packages. It worked great.

It was never listed as a feature - there was no focus on it at all, but it was there, and it worked how you'd expect it to work.