Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

[Joeyland]

While hear arguments re: play selection, defensive ai, marketing, presentation, all I can think of is this game is out performed by an old x-box 1 game, (APF 08)
This was basically an original x-box game, just slicked up for the new platform.
Yet, it has better psysics, better ai, better defensive adjustments, more/better playbooks, better offense line play, better receiver animations, more general animations, (at least they don;t repeat as often), better hot reads, routes and blitzes, and generally way more difficult to exploit, (although not impossible)
What you should be telling us is that this "current" build is not up to the standards we, as die-hard gamers come to expect, 5 years into the next gen consoles. Then tell us the truth, that we will next see a new, vastly improved version of Madden when the next console is finally released.
What we don't want to hear is how your concerned about average number plays being run. The small number of plays being run is a direct result the inferior gameplay, and prevalence of "money" in this game.
Improving presentation does'nt help sell a game with poor gameplay
So voice the assist. coaches, work on the play selection screen, then get ready for more negative noise from the community.

[ODogg]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

Dude 2k football is dead, let it go

[splff3000]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

Just in case, let me reiterate how I want it tiered. We should be able to call a front, then call a stunt/blitz package(either seperately or together, then call the coverage.

This would allow for almost unlimited combinations. So instead of searching for what you want and likely not finding it, you put it together. You want a 4-3, weakside DE/DT loop, WOLB blitz, cover 1? Just put it together.

My experience has been that I have defensive ideas in my head, but can never find the "play" in the playbook. Depending on what I'm trying to stop that play, the coverage or the stunts/blitzes may be more important. So I pick a play with something close and settle for whatever else EA packaged with it. I shouldn't have to use EA's blitz/stunt package just because I want to play cover 1 free. And I shouldn't have to use a certain coverage because it's packaged with the blitz I want.

IRL, defensive coordinators are not limited by a set of plays. They have fronts, stunts, blitzes & coverages that they can combine in any way they want. That's what we should have.

Now, no disrespect to you, nor anyone that may have learned this way, but many folks learned about football through Madden. Many of those folks may not know how it should work. But they do know it's limiting, so they use the position audibles(forget what they're called) to get the defense they really want not realizing there's a tried and true way the NFL, college, HS & little leagues have been using since the beginning of (football)time.

This!!

There were a few things that I liked about 2k and a few that I didn't like. One thing that I loved though was the tiered defensive play calling. Now I never played HS, college, or pro ball,( played middle school though ) but I could definitely see the advantage of tiered playcalling. It was perfect for someone like me who likes to try to give the offense a different look almost everytime we get on the field. I'm not a stick skill guy by any means. I'm one of the guys that try to win with a better strategy than you. That's ok when I'm on offense on Madden, but when I'm on defense, a lot of times, I feel like I'm in a cage lol. There are so many times that I want to have my D-line do one thing and have my secondary do another but can't find a play with the combination I want. This is quite frustrating especially if your opponent gets a big gain. Another thing I like about the tiered play calling is I can come out in what ever shell I want to. If I want to show cover 4, even though I'm blitzing, I can. I really would like to see some form of tiered play calling in the future. I'm tired of being trapped in this cage.

[KBLover]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

Yes the AI in some games are better than others but bottom line is playing a human is always your best bet for an intelligent opponent.

The bottom line is that EA needs to improve their AI and/or open up how it thinks to being modified by gamers so that they can create their own AI players.

When EA's AI is top level and pushing the limits of Game AI - then we can talk about EA being hampered by limits of game-purpose AI.

The fact AI isn't as good as a human isn't relevant to the fact EA's AI needs help and needs to be improved - and those improvements, imo, are not close to pushing the limits of game AI.

Playing a human isn't going to make the other 10 players that other human isn't playing behave/think/play any better. Improving the player AI will.

[hatisback]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

Dude 2k football is dead, let it go

2k Football may be dead, but nobody can deny that the engine was better than Maddens and played better than Madden (at least the Madden we have now).

[kjcheezhead]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

Here's why the average person uses just a handful of plays.

http://www.youtube.com/user/versuz2#p/u/170/Q24KR9dQl8I

Adaptive AI where were you on this vid?

[roadman]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

I here's why the average person uses just a handful of plays.

http://www.youtube.com/user/versuz2#p/u/170/Q24KR9dQl8I

Adaptive AI where were on this vid?

Yep, seen that one before.

[roadman]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

So voice the assist. coaches, work on the play selection screen, then get ready for more negative noise from the community.

So, you think this is all Madden is implementing for 11 this year? Or is it that we haven't heard all the meat and potatoes, yet?

Why not wait before casting stones all over the place and see what is being offered.

[hatisback]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

So, you think this is all Madden is implementing for 11 this year? Or is it that we haven't heard all the meat and potatoes, yet?

Why not wait before casting stones all over the place and see what is being offered.

No offense, as I agree with your post.....but some of the things that were supposed to be in last year wasn't so how are we supposed to label these things when they get released as credible?

[Jump]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

I like the idea of more contrived counters for sure. I know football is random and not black and white, but anyone who has spent a fair amount of time online knows that players can bank on a handful of tactics to work for an entire game. There isn't much "mixing in" of plays.

Personally I like to think I'm the opposite of that type of gamer. I'm one who tries not to call the same plays more than twice. It has obvious advantages. The first advantage being that the user controlled pass defender legitimately has no idea what's coming and is therefore stripped of his inherent advantage to CPU players: he doesn't know what's coming either.

That being said, it gets very frustrating see the PA flats work consistently against blitzes when the user isn't setting up those plays with run calls. In reality, defenders should be obliterating the QB if he's trying to pull off playaction without actually running the ball.

On defense, many people find 1 or 2 blitzes that get through consistently and call it a day. One trick ponies are just everywhere in ranked matches. These guys bank on someone now knowing a basic counter to their strategy.

Where I think things get really sad is when you see guys who play this game for money. They play just like the ranked lobby kids: 1 base play and audibling/hot routing from it. What does this tell us: It's really the best way to play if your main goal is to win at all costs. That's not good. That needs to change. There's clear logical reasons why teams don't come out in the same play every play. That logic needs to be reflected in Madden in some way.

To be completely blunt, Madden becomes a pretty terrible experience once the chess match is stripped from it. That's what some of the top players do. Madden needs to learn from real time strategy games. Promoting smart decisions, unpredictability, and an overall engaging chess match is the reason football is successful in real life, and is exactly where Madden needs to go to compete with FPS in the competitive game arena.

I'd like to see mechanisms within the game that force varied playcalling. Something as simple as that would add so much to the game. Nothing kills Madden (or any video game nonetheless) more than people "gaming the game". It sucks the life out of everything you intend to do in a game. It becomes a moral battle. It's you playing a guy willing to mess with the AI for an advantage while you won't. I'd rather have the moral battle be gone.

Interestingly, Tecmo Super Bowl's simple concept of "guessing plays" eliminates money plays and repetitive playcalling right then and there. Tecmo does more with it's 8 plays than many Madden games do with their 300. There's a lesson to be learned there, guys.

Rant over. I'd love to hear opinions on this.

Nice post.

On the counters, I wouldn't want a blunt system where each offensive play has a partner defensive play that stops it every time.

First they've gotta get the basics down, like flat zones covering the flats, hook zone defenders reacting to receivers moving into their zone,etc. They've just gotta make basic football logic translate to Madden.

Things like - when you bring a safety up in to the box, he shouldn't be able to read pass, turn around, and get back to knock down a pass to a streaking WR. Stuff like that really hurts the chess game.

[roadman]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

No offense, as I agree with your post.....but some of the things that were supposed to be in last year wasn't so how are we supposed to label these things when they get released as credible?

No offense taken as that has been gone over many times in this forum. Ian explained that some of the blogs that were written for whatever reason didn't make the final cut.

I don't think they purposely lied in their blogs, but again, if people want to believe that, your choice.

It's up to you and everyone else what you want believe from here on out until the game comes out.

I'll just take it piece by piece until the game comes out.

[KBLover]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

On the counters, I wouldn't want a blunt system where each offensive play has a partner defensive play that stops it every time.

First they've gotta get the basics down, like flat zones covering the flats, hook zone defenders reacting to receivers moving into their zone,etc. They've just gotta make basic football logic translate to Madden.

Exactly.

I would really really hate a hard counter system in a sports game.

[Joeyland]

Its not about loving on 2K, its about benchmarks, APF2K8 was undeniably the best push at duplicating real football, this is an OLD benchmark, its time for someone, (since ea and the NFL decided only they should b the one) to step up.
Imagine if baseball was in the same shape as football for gamers. You wanna still be stuck in the Summer of 07 with your baseballs games development?
How was MLB the show in 08 compared to now?

[KBLover]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

You wanna still be stuck in the Summer of 07 with your baseballs games development?
How was MLB the show in 08 compared to now?

Don't know about 08, but 06 was solid, imo, and RTTS hasn't actually changed all that much between 06 and 09. CL still suck to play as and you still can't be a mid-/setup reliever and knuckleballs are still like OMGLOLWhatWasThat?

'07 was...OOTP7 (or 8, one of those) - pretty solid as well. I still play OOTP6 which was 2004 I believe. Shoot, I play Baseball Pro '98 still. Got a Win98 emulation program, just so I can keep playing it.

So - if baseball was still in '07 - I'd be fine.

Heck, I was playing MVP 05 with the 07 Mod...and MVP is a couple years older than The Show.

[edwolf]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

This nonsense is why i hope the NFL lockout happens so that they can tear up this stupid EA-NFL contract. Say what you want but 2k is for real sim players while Madden only cares about people who don't know anything about the real game of football.