Made a small change this week...

[NYyankz225]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Why not have the best of both worlds? Why not only have it during the presnap "Play art" view? That way when you're viewing your play on offense or defense you can still see the "impact players" but you don't need to see it when the action is going on. I know there's that "matchup" feature with the L trigger but to be honest I've never used it. Have icons show up only through the view playart feature by default, with the option to completely remove it/add it.

That way you have all the obtrusive "clutter" (play art and icons) on one completely optional screen.

[BigDuke]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Not sure if someone mentioned it yet, but instead of on/off only, why not have them off by default with the option of showing them via pre-play button toggle? It think as the franchise years progress, we players will be less familiar with the opposing team's weapons. It would be helpful to see who is lined up where during pre-play. You could even include them with the existing coach's pre-play toggle.

As a comparison, it would be similar to how we could view pre-play composure for players via button toggle in last gen NCAA football.

[BigDuke]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Why not have the best of both worlds? Why not only have it during the presnap "Play art" view? That way when you're viewing your play on offense or defense you can still see the "impact players" but you don't need to see it when the action is going on. I know there's that "matchup" feature with the L trigger but to be honest I've never used it. Have icons show up only through the view playart feature by default, with the option to completely remove it/add it.

That way you have all the obtrusive "clutter" (play art and icons) on one completely optional screen.

Exactly what I was thinking...and at the same time. Cue Twilight zone music.

[NYyankz225]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Exactly what I was thinking...and at the same time. Cue Twilight zone music.

Wow...that's eerie.

Great minds think alike I guess .

[splff3000]

Re: Made a small change this week...

I prefer off.



2) Could it be possible to tying the pre-play menus on/off to the skill level chosen? Say for Rookie/Pro they are on and for All-Pro/All-Madden they are automatically off? Or if you had a choice of say like Hardcore/Casual or something along those lines.

I agree with this and all the others like this. This is a good idea. If you're playing on all pro or all madden then you pretty much know how to play madden and don't really need a preplay menu, but you could still have an option of pushing the R3 button to bring it up just for those that might need a reminder.

[thudias]

Re: Made a small change this week...

On or off doesn't make a difference as long as we have an option switch.

[Ian_Cummings]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Imo. Default on is more sensible.

Hardcores know how to turn this stuff on, and it takes like 2 seconds.

But for the first time or newer players, they're gonna fked trying find how to turn the hints on.

New players may not know the game has hints, weapons, etc. And they're have a harder (vs the hardcore turning it off) trying to turn stuff on.

So leave them default on, everyone who wants em off has no trouble turning them off.

Everyone who wants them on, will be confused and throw the game out the window.

So just to give a little insight, honestly this was definitely my first thought. But as I thought a little deeper...realistically is a person new to next-gen Madden going to do any pre-snap adjustments? I think they more likely feel overwhelmed when they see all these options. All of my friends nowadays say "Madden is too hard to play now", but I mean the core mechanics are the same from when they played 5 years ago - call a play, snap it, throw it, run, etc. IMO, it's the overkill with a million options that are always in their face that contributes to the panic. It immediately can invoke the feeling that "maybe I don't know what I'm doing" if you aren't using every one of those options. So I know the knee jerk thought is to think that we need to give more info for casual gamers, but that can often be detrimental when you go overboard.

We could also probably debate whether that many "casual" Madden gamers even exist on next-gen...do a lot of people out there spend $300+ bucks on new hardware and probably $1k at least on HD setups and stuff when they have no clue how to use a controller or have never seen a game of football? Wii on the other hand...

[thudias]

Re: Made a small change this week...

So just to give a little insight, honestly this was definitely my first thought. But as I thought a little deeper...realistically is a person new to next-gen Madden going to do any pre-snap adjustments? I think they more likely feel overwhelmed when they see all these options. All of my friends nowadays say "Madden is too hard to play now", but I mean the core mechanics are the same from when they played 5 years ago - call a play, snap it, throw it, run, etc. IMO, it's the overkill with a million options that are always in their face that contributes to the panic. It immediately can invoke the feeling that "maybe I don't know what I'm doing" if you aren't using every one of those options. So I know the knee jerk thought is to think that we need to give more info for casual gamers, but that can often be detrimental when you go overboard.

We could also probably debate whether that many "casual" Madden gamers even exist on next-gen...do a lot of people out there spend $300+ bucks on new hardware and probably $1k at least on HD setups and stuff when they have no clue how to use a controller or have never seen a game of football? Wii on the other hand...

Wow very good points...I change my vote to Off by deault. I like the sound of having it basic and you can add things if you like.

Yes you can be a casaual Madden Gamer on NexGen. The casual Madden gamers probably spent the 300 for hardware for games like Halo and first person shooters etc.. They buy Madden to pass time between those types of games. Ahh that was a total guess, I only own sports games and Rockband.

[bison160]

Re: Made a small change this week...

+1 for leaving all that crap off. Keep it about football. maybe have a big centerfold page in the manual that tells all of the pre-snap adjustments. Or you could turn them on in the options. I would say the more simple you keep the screen looking during gameplay, the easier it will be to play for even the beginner. And all the hardcore guys know how to make adjustments without all that garbage filling it up! Another positive move Ian, THANKS!

[Vikes1]

Re: Made a small change this week...

just "pure football" again.

To me this says it all.

[KOACHK]

Re: Made a small change this week...

With the weapon icons, I think you will do fine without them. You did fine without them in the past. Unless you are going to program specific abilities and attach it to weapon icons so that players with certain icons have special animation sets, I just think the game would look alot cleaner without all of that stuff in there.

I agree LBzrule. -I think weapon icons are more for causual gamers who don't actually go into the rosters to actually look at player ratings. --I've enjoyed your writeups and learned alot from them in the past; I hope to see more writeups and e-books from you in the future!


Ian,
I think what is left on or off out of the box is very important because alot of it seems to translate directly to what is default in online play. -Maybe a good compromise would be to have weapon icons on or off depending on the skill level settings instead.

Speaking on behalf of the tourney/competetive community; I think there should be a skill level/setting dedicated to tourney/competetive play. -On the other end of the spectrum; maybe there should be a skill level/setting dedicated to sim/casual play also. I would think tweaking the "fair-play" function for this might prove very useful, and getting the input of the leading tourney and sim community leaders would prove very useful in that endeavor.

[Guillotine 1]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Ian-

What about a Hardcore Mode, where we can have the actual recieving icons off as well. So during the actual play there are no icons on the Wr's, Te's, Rb's, and Fb's. Again, this could be turned on or off as well...

Rookie, Pro, All-Pro, All-Madden, and then Hardcore (no icons).

[roadman]

Re: Made a small change this week...

We could also probably debate whether that many "casual" Madden gamers even exist on next-gen...do a lot of people out there spend $300+ bucks on new hardware and probably $1k at least on HD setups and stuff when they have no clue how to use a controller or have never seen a game of football? Wii on the other hand...

Ian;

Back in my days in college, it was Intellivision or the Atari 2600. The 2600 cost $99.00 back in the 80's. College students, at least in my time, couldn't afford big screen TV's, so, the the standard dorm TV was probably 13-15 inch range.

I don't know how much has changed today, but my nephew loves to play Madden and doesn't have an HD setup. His GF bought him the 360.

I don't know if the college crowd is a large paying audience of Madden, but I'm sure college bound students can figure out how to turn on the weapons, pre-snap, etc......

[GoToledo]

Re: Made a small change this week...

It's 100% more awesome.

Only 100% more, huh?

[tmulk]

Re: Made a small change this week...

Keep the LS, RS option available, just not visable. So if you hit down on the LS button, the menu pops up, but when you come to the line you see nothing, not even the closed menu. Just pull it up when you hit it, and have it go away after every play. IT SUCKS when your opponet feels the need to keep them up all f'ing game long!!!!!!! Get that nonsense off the screen!!! But still give the option of pulling it up real fast and then remove it for the next play, unless you need it again.