Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

[at23steelers]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

I was kind of confused on the star rating. Does it mean I rate the plays myself, so I don't have to remember if it worked or not the last time I tried it, or does the CPU rate it, depending on the success rate?

[T3B0W]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

One thing the Wii has shown us is that the casual gamers far outnumber the hardcore gamers. This release appears to be catering to both casual and hardcore (Gameflow / locomotion).

True. It's will be interesting to see if the developers can find the right balance and not risk losing one or the other.

[SA1NT401]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

I love the GAMEFLOW concept actually....I brings the "GAMEPLAN' aspect into madden....The stat TC mentioned where Ian said most madden players only use 13 plays out of 350 (highly doubt there are that many Offensive/Defensive plays but w/e) and i assume thats Offense and defense....But i digress....

I personally use 95% of the plays in whatever playbook i pick...I like to mix it up and TRY not to use the same play more than 2 times. Guess you could say i was just trying to GAMEPLAN without that actual feature. I had 5-9 plays for several situations....

I think it will be a nice OPTION overall....LOVE LOVE LOVE that there is a new kicking mechanic...Got sick of making 98% of every FG i ever attempted.

Im intrigued....

[SamitSarkar]

So in other words they are trying to make kicking more interesting this year. It's going to be interesting to see how it will turn out. Now lets see if people complain about the new system when they play it. Time will tell if people will love it are hate it.

It's funny you mention that. I asked Ian about why they changed it, and it's not about trying to make kicking "more interesting" or anything like that. He explained that apparently, a decent amount of people couldn't figure out how to get the old kicking meter started -- like, even though it says "R" on it for the right stick, they'd just keep hitting X (A on 360), which would only bring up and put away the "help" menu. Man, what a funny mental image.

[SamitSarkar]

The gameplay videos sure don't show it's been fixed.

From what they told me, they're still working on the blocking AI, and any videos that they've shown so far are from really early builds where the blocking AI is either a work-in-progress or not yet implemented at all.

[SamitSarkar]

So no hands on for franchise? I am still wondering if the ability to change teams during a franchise will be implemented in offline franchise??

At this (admittedly early) press event, they weren't talking about game modes (superstar, franchise, etc.) or online play at all -- they were focusing strictly on gameplay. I imagine we'll hear a lot more of that stuff as we get closer to E3 (remember, that's when they announced online franchise last year).

[SamitSarkar]

I was kind of confused on the star rating. Does it mean I rate the plays myself, so I don't have to remember if it worked or not the last time I tried it, or does the CPU rate it, depending on the success rate?

If you go in and edit a team's playbook, each play will already have its own weight (from 0.5 stars to 5 stars). But you can change the weighting on any play yourself, so if you see a play that you like on, say, 3rd-and-long, and you want it to come up more often when you use GameFlow in that situation, you can just hit RT/R2 on the play to increase the weighting.

And if you're creating a gameplan from scratch, you set the star ratings yourself. (And I guess that if you don't bother to change the weightings, each play will have an equal probability of being chosen by GameFlow.)

[Valdarez]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

From what they told me, they're still working on the blocking AI, and any videos that they've shown so far are from really early builds where the blocking AI is either a work-in-progress or not yet implemented at all.

Good deal, means there's a chance for improvement.

[Valdarez]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

I think it will be a nice OPTION overall....LOVE LOVE LOVE that there is a new kicking mechanic...Got sick of making 98% of every FG i ever attempted.

The new kicking mechanic doesn't mean you won't still do the same, or that it's tuned properly to make kicking more challenging. If they wanted to change kicking, they should have started with tuning their existing system so the accuracy had more impact instead of adding a button based kicking mechanism. In other words the mechanism wasn't the problem, it was the tuning, and a new mechanism doesn't mean the tuning problem has been solved.

[canes21]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Hands-On Impressions (Destructoid)

Good preview. I usually play sim and I am not in the minority of Madden gamers. I used more than 13 plays a game for sure. But, I definitely want to try the GameFlow feature out. I can't wait to make my own gameplan for each team and see how it works out. Also, since they have all this information and authentic playbooks for the teams, I am assuming it also means the CPU will have 32 different ways to win like NCAA's 120 ways to win?