Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

The worst non-blocking issue, is the QB/WR/DB play. It's ridiculous. While the running game somewhat represents its true life counterpart, the passing game is NOTHING like what you see Sunday. NOTHING like it. Not in any sense. Not even close. And I find it embarrassing that it still isn't fixed. The other day, I try throwing a pass that was at least 10 yards to the right of a DE, who is on the LOS trying to get at the QB, and he JUMPS in the air and his body hovers directly to the ball while it's in the air, and instead of my wide open WR catching it, the DE intercepts it before it even gets past the LOS. Please tell me, when have you ever seen this in a pro football game? A DE might pick a tipped ball or a screen or something, but he isn't going to stand at the LOS and pick a ball that is just a normal pass, especially when the ball is being thrown nowhere ****ing near him.

You see this same thing from DB's in the game too. If you try to throw deep, the DB's are simply going to hover to the ball and swat it away, regardless of how close they are to your WR. As if swatting passes happen on every single play. Weird how they NEVER miss a swat either. There's no realism to this game. There's no human error. You just feel like you're playing against an AI running the same program over and over again. The WR animations are pitiful, they're putrid. They don't even look at the ball, for one. Then they don't even attempt to catch the ball, or actually battle the DB's. The DB's don't even cover, they just run your route faster than you, and then swat the ball away.

You get on the endzone, you can't throw a fade. You try and throw near the sidelines, you can't do that. You try and run play-action, you get sacked within seconds, and your guys are always perfectly covered, you can't do that either. You can't throw OVERTOP of defenders, and it drives me ****ing crazy. If you try to throw overtop of a defender, it's getting swatted or picked, as if QB's have absolutely zero accuracy at all, and always underthrow their target by 10 feet, or as if every DB (and MLB'ers, how many 10 INT seasons have you seen with MLB'ers in the game?) is just so good that he's always directly on your WR with zero space or separation.

WR's don't react to the ball anywhere close to real life. Nor do they even look at the ball, as a matter of fact. Guess what? Every Sunday, even mediocre WR's are going to battle for the ball, go up and get it, against a DB. It's routine football. While there are advantages with Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson, they feel more like exploits, not intelligent and well crafted gameplay, not like a WR beating his DB for a ball on a well thrown pass by his QB.

And then there's the superhuman DB issues, with how they hover to the ball, speeding up at the last second and somehow running from halfway across the field to swat a ball away in time. If a safety is in the middle of the field, and I throw a deep bomb down the sidelines because my man has his CB beat, the safety is not going to end up anywhere close to that ball to swat it. Mayyyyyybe he can get there and make the tackle, but he's certainly not going to swat the ball away. Yet this happens 10 times a game in Madden.


You can bring up a billion different issues, because there are that many. But the biggest gaping issue is the QB/WR/DB play, because it's such a HUGE part of football, and it's so horribly off in Madden. It's not even close. It doesn't really matter what the priorities are, we're all just senselessly bitching about it, because nothing is ever going to be done. We all know the issue at this point, and that's the outdated engine, and until Madden burns it down and starts from scratch to make a completely new game, the game that we, as gamers and football fans who pay money for their product deserve, we're not going to see any monumental changes to the things that we complain about. I'm done buying Madden until they do a complete overhaul.

Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

I've only played one series that did this, the Baseball Pro/Football Pro series from Dynamix (which was later brought under Sierra).

Those games simmed just like you are proposing and generated highlights from those games.

I would LOVE to see something like this in the next Madden (along with everything else in your post).
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Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

MADDEN will NOT get any better due to 1 thing....

THE ENGINE ITSELF!!! Madden needs to be completely RE-BUILT to even stand a chance of being a "SIM". Sadly...we will not see any of that til the next generation of consoles hit.

What we have now is as good as it is going to get....And that isn't saying much.

Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

They do miss every once in a while. Maybe it's sliders, but I had a game I won because they tried this, missed, and my WR ended up with room to run for a nice gain after the catch. Of course, it doesn't excuse the fact it happens in the first place.


Agreed. Seems like something sports games struggle with. MLB The Show isn't too bad in this regard, but there's still very few mental lapses (throwing to the wrong base or trying to get a guy out they shouldn't, like the play the Angels 2B made trying to turn the DP and ended up throwing the ball, and the game, away against the Yankees. That doesn't happen in sports games).

It would be nice, especially when talking average skills and below, to see guys miss assignments sometimes. Coverages get blown, guys slip, they anticipate, but read the wrong thing, so they go in the wrong direction. They fall for double moves, etc.

Agreed again. I think what they are trying to simulate is how DBs jump routes or anticipate routes. I think the bigger problem I have is that the slider has more impact than the ratings. Asmougha, okay, fine, I could see him, or Revis, etc, do this. That 41 OVR guy the Ravens have? No. But if that slider is high enough EVERYONE will do it. If it's low NO ONE will do it. It should be based on MCV and PRC more than the slider.


I think if the engine just generated more throws that go to no one but are incomplete, they can cut back on all this stuff. Seems like the way it is now, it's either complete (to the WR), incomplete (because of the DB stuff you talk about), or a pick (because the errant pass gets "directed" to a DB so he has a chance for a pick). Few and far between are passes that are bad, but just go incomplete. About the only time that happens is like you said with fades and slidelines. There's some kind of "auto-lead" on the ball it seems, even if you don't use the L-stick to put any actual lead on the ball.

Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

Franchise Mode

Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

integrating Head Coach 09 Career mode into Franchise mode.

Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

I would like to see coaching-type sliders added, so I could control things like CPU blitzing, subbing, aggressiveness, etc., without having to control every team in franchise.

Line play and DB/WR interactions are definitely the two biggest areas on the field. If they only addressed those two things this game would make a huge leap next year.

Re: Madden 11 priorities?
 

One more thing I'd like to see added for Madden 11.....

A great big, fat 1,000 page "HOW EVERYTHING IN MADDEN WORKS" instruction manual. Hell, I'll pay $10 extra for it. Just something, anything to explain the sliders, the gamecalling differences, the baseline for quarter times and game speeds to get accurate stats, etc. Just tell us what does what! Please! :y220: