Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

[Flamehead]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

i don't know..he always seems to dance around questions during his interviews.

True, but at least his answers are better than "I'll take your word for it".

[Chivs]

I don't like this "Yeah, we're looking into that.." business. I mean, it's nice that they're looking into it, but does this mean they're looking to fix it for us soon, or for Madden 12, or is he just saying it even if they've not even thought about looking into it?

Hmmm

[macaframa3]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

Most of you guys are babies. I mean yeah there are things wrong with the game, but if you have ever programmed anything you find there is always things that need to be tweaked once the general public gets its hands on it.

People need to understand the delicate balance it is for a sports video game between too hard and too easy. After they change one area it can adversely effect several others. Most of your complaints can be corrected with a little bit of slider work.

The issue that are the same year in and year out are very annoying but mostly these problems can be fixed with a patch. I think they spend so much time catering to all the whining people do that they dont fix the issues that are most important. A REAL defense doesn't make 3 or 4 changes at the line of scrimmage.

P.S. I agree with him about special teams, i thought it sucked at first but when you look at the stats, they are pretty on point.

[boxboy99]

Good read and Ian I actually love kick returns now. It is more relistic. No one would ever take a knee before this year. Kicking still needs revamped. It is too easy and almost always max power.

[Hova57]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

chivis i don't know how long you been around here, but off all places you def don't want to say you are def doing something. its just a wild fire waiting to happen. i want to see the playaction, break tackle and man coverages and how the LB reacts fixed . i wish chris would have asked him bout tackles and that they are bout a second off the snap and the end is past them by then

[bigsmallwood]

It is always interesting that no questions are asked about the Presentation....Come on OS.

And Ian seems to tap dance around the questions: In regards to broken tackles " Again, that is something we are trying to tune and see if we can make it any better -- if it warrants it. We are just always listening to the community and the hot-button issues, and we go from there"

If they were listening to the community, I believe we would have a much better game than what we are playing....

[BezO]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

There still "looking" at things? Everything sounds so up in the air like they're still wondering if these are problems.

And this...

Ian: Yeah, a lot of that comes from the ratings differentiation that we have. We make our guys spread out a lot more so that defensive backs tackling ratings are pretty low. They are not good tacklers for the most part so you’ve got to kind of try and swarm around the ball. Again, that is something we are trying to tune and see if we can make it any better -- if it warrants it. We are just always listening to the community and the hot-button issues, and we go from there.

LOL. He mentioned OS, but I don't think he's listening to this board. Swarm around the ball for what? To get knocked over like a bowling pin? We needed a Pro-Tak follow up question right there.

He did say around the ball, not to it though.

[Dewie12]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

And I think what you see is if we boost the CPU time that they wait, that frustrates way more people. The majority of people don’t want to wait seven seconds and wait while the computer stands still. So that’s kind of a tough balance we have to figure out. We always talk about making a slider but that seems sort of like overkill [laughs].

No Ian the more sliders you make the less criticism you get from players on OS. There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to giving USERS the option to customize their game.

I realize more and more EA is so far away from making a football game I will enjoy. All I want is the ability to customize my game. EA continues to limit this (editing ratings in franchise/dynasty, sliders, time controls, playbooks etc......). Just make a PC version.

I give up.

[jvaccaro]

they should have the CPU snap the ball 1 second after you make your last defensive adjustments, with a max time of maybe 6-8 seconds before they snap anyways. obviously this would be overridden in a hurry up situation.

[BezO]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

And I think what you see is if we boost the CPU time that they wait, that frustrates way more people. The majority of people don’t want to wait seven seconds and wait while the computer stands still. So that’s kind of a tough balance we have to figure out. We always talk about making a slider but that seems sort of like overkill [laughs].

Dewiel12,

Yeah, I'm not sure how they can ever make a sim if the game only caters to the "majority of people". Of course not everyone has the same concerns. But if you go arcade at every turn, what happens to the sim gamer? At what point do you alienate us?

And the computer doesn't have to "stand still". It can make adjustments, line calls, ect. It's called football.

But the bigger problem is always skipped over. Many of us wouldn't be as concerned with the CPU snap time if we could call the plays we want in the huddle. Tier the play calling!!!

[ANDROMADA 1]

Great read. thanks for the info.

[poopoop]

Everytime this guy get asked a question he just offers sympathy and basically says also feels the same way, then doesn't give any concrete info on how/if they're going to fix it. The end result is a bunch of empty answers that don't really say anything.

[djordan]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

OMG WOW... I can't believe this.

OS: Yeah, I noticed in the open field that guys are breaking tackles and wide receivers are breaking tackles more often than not. And not only that, they are breaking them to the house after they wiggle free.

Ian: Yeah, a lot of that comes from the ratings differentiation that we have. We make our guys spread out a lot more so that defensive backs tackling ratings are pretty low. They are not good tacklers for the most part so you’ve got to kind of try and swarm around the ball. Again, that is something we are trying to tune and see if we can make it any better -- if it warrants it. We are just always listening to the community and the hot-button issues, and we go from there.

Steve you should've responded with

"Well even if the user swarms around the ball their is still no true gang tackling to ensure the ball carrier will be stopped."

[Dog]

Re: Madden NFL 11: Ian Cummings Interview

i find it interesting that ian has all these great ideas, yet a lot of them dont make it into the game. whats holding them back? a lot of the stuff he talked about would be really good additions to madden

[bigsmallwood]

After this interview, I am more than certain that Ian and crew have no intentions of making Madden mirror the game we watch on Saturday and Sundays. I have a personal solution though!

Shouts to OS for getting the interview!