Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

[roadman]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

But as many people stated, features that have been on Wishlists since the first Next Gen Madden came out, are still not in the game. The devs are obviously taking development time to implement this feature which over 90% of us have already stated that we'll turn it off.

I cant remember one person ever saying "hey, you know what thia game needs....a rewind feature, cause thats sim!"

For those who think this is a simple replay feature therefore it was probably implemented quite quickly, look at the big picture.

In the video Collinsworth has specific commentary as to where the ball should be thrown to, why it should be thrown there, and what position that player was...Commentary AI like that takes significant time to implement.

I understand what you are saying, at least the producer is coming into forums this year and answering questions why these wishlist haven't been implemented. It's up to the individual whether to believe him or not.

The new president of EA announced when he arrived EA was going to make Madden for everyone.

Even though I wouldn't use this feature, doesn't mean I don't think it could be beneficial to someone new who has never played Madden before.

[ezekiel55]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

I understand what you are saying, at least the producer is coming into forums this year and answering questions why these wishlist haven't been implemented. It's up to the individual whether to believe him or not.

The new president of EA announced when he arrived EA was going to make Madden for everyone.

Even though I wouldn't use this feature, doesn't mean I don't think it could be beneficial to someone new who has never played Madden before.

I agree with what you're saying it definitely could be beneficial to new gamers, and I do appreciate the devs taking time to field questions.

Hopefully, though, they look at the big picture and see that they need to cater to their base fans as well. Us sim-gamers are the reason that Madden has been around as long as it has and hopefully they dont forget that.

[FlyingFinn]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

Personally, I don't think this feature will be beneficial to new casual gamers. Their biggest problem is the control scheme, not throwing to the wrong man or taking a sack. Time and time again I talk to people who play video games but not sports games and I ask them why they don't play, even though they are big sports fans. 9 times out of 10 I get: "I can't remember which buttons do what because there are too many of them".

This feature is for the Madden Nation Gamer. Now they will be able see how to exploit the game AI for each and ever play in the playbook, allowing them to score 100 pts in a 2 minute qtr game rather then a mere 62. One plus is they may use more then the same 3 or 4 plays...

[ezekiel55]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

This feature is for the Madden Nation Gamer. Now they will be able see how to exploit the game AI for each and ever play in the playbook, allowing them to score 100 pts in a 2 minute qtr game rather then a mere 62.

LOL...

Its unfortunate, but I think your spot on with that prediction.

[jfsolo]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

From Ian Cummings on the MaddenMania boards:

And to beat someone to the punch with a post of "why did they spend time on X feature that I think is stupid when they could have spent that on OL/DL play or gang tackles?"

The gameplay team is separate from the rest of the teams, and shared among NCAA and Madden. So there has never been a decision to do a feature OUTSIDE of gameplay over something that is gameplay-related (i.e. the gameplay team has nothing to do with Franchise, Online, Virtual Training Center, etc.). This is also why I can't answer anything about other modes in the other posts.

I don't know for certain, but the rewind feature seems like it was a Peter Moore mandated feature that was going to be in the game period. So the group of guys assigned to that task probably worked on it exclusively.

There are of course a lot of reasons to be critical of the gameplay team, but them working on fluff features instead of core football features doesn't seem to be one of those reasons. And if as he says the team is shared amongst both games, well then you can see why only a couple of major game play fixes get done each cycle. This is with them have to deal with the poor design decisions of the past that have plagued this game for many, many years.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

It's a great discussion article - huge props to the author, I thought it was very well written and probably the best new OS article to date. I don't see why it's a problem to speculate on the possible implications of what Tiburon chooses to implement in the game right now - the game is still a relatively long way from release date and they're putting out information regularly, so why not discuss it.

Personally I don't think Tiburon would choose the feature to counter the turnover issues the game had last year. I do think the feature is bad because it would seem to encourage more recklessness when playing - 4th and a few yards, may as well go for it because I can take a mulligan if I fail (if the feature works the way I envision). There are a ton of similar scenarios. If a person is a football novice, it doesn't seem wise to encourage less strategizing and make the game more arcadey than it already is. It doesn't seem like a good way to teach new Madden players good fundamentals, which will affect the quality of play overall/further water down the quality of the online gameplay experience

[yamabushi]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

this ever-present dumbing-down of Madden has me largely pessimistic for the future. If EA is focused on creating a game that even your grandma could play, then it’s doubtful that they will work on improving pass defense AI, or including all the correct alternate uniforms. You know, the things that really matter to the football fans. Seems like some flawed thinking to this guy.

And there you have it.
Any hopes that Madden would improve and move to a more sim like experience died when Peter Moore walked thru the door, lusting after the Wiis 'success'.
And I doubt even another year of declining sales will sway this manic pursuit of the 'casual' market.

Thank Jebus for backwards compatibility.

[clarkerots]

People who say "just turn it off" are obviously not reading the part about the rewind feature possibly being a "fix" to the turnover issue. You can't turn off the rediculous turnovers so turning off the rewind doesn't fix the overall problem. Unless you want to turn off fumbles too, maybe penalites, maybe we can turn off field goals......oh, I can't wait for actual football!!!!

[MassNole]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

Great article, I am disgusted with this feature.

I haven't read up fully on it, but please tell me this won't be available in Online play?

[oukingpen]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

No, you can disable it.

good. by looking at this thread and all the whining you'd think it was mandatory.

[roadman]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

Great article, I am disgusted with this feature.

I haven't read up fully on it, but please tell me this won't be available in Online play?

No to online play.

[roadman]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

People who say "just turn it off" are obviously not reading the part about the rewind feature possibly being a "fix" to the turnover issue. You can't turn off the rediculous turnovers so turning off the rewind doesn't fix the overall problem. Unless you want to turn off fumbles too, maybe penalites, maybe we can turn off field goals......oh, I can't wait for actual football!!!!

According to Ian Cummings, the TO's were fixed with a patch last year and tweaked this year.

So, words like possibly, could be, speculate, is just one writers opinion.

We won't know one way or another until the game comes out.

[yamabushi]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

According to Ian Cummings, the TO's were fixed with a patch last year and tweaked this year.

So, words like possibly, could be, speculate, is just one writers opinion.

We won't know one way or another until the game comes out.

Looking at the track record, Id put more weight behind McComb's speculations then EA's press releases.

[roadman]

Re: Reasons to Hate the Madden Mulligan Feature

Looking at the track record, Id put more weight behind McComb's speculations then EA's press releases.

Normally, I would agree with you. I've always believed history is a good predictor of the future.

For some reason, a gut feeling, I feel that Ian is answering more questions this year and not just on EA's board.

I think he's trying to reach out more to the sim crowd.

Just my opinion, though.

[aggro77]

Umm..actually EA/Tiburon has had this feature in their back pocket for a while. It was present in the last couple of Maddens (2004,2005) that were released for the PS1. They actually called it Mulligans and you got 3 per game. You could not turn the feature off in those versions of the game so it is good to see that they will be Next-Gen gamers the option. I'm sure they will probably dress this up for Next Gen with, probably, a visual rewind of the play, but it is still the same feature that they experimented with in the final days of the PS 1.