lol, man. I appreciate the opinion, but we are definitely in disagreement on RTP. I have been waiting 20+ years for RTP!!! lol. Year after year getting these canned animations has been killing me. And, yeah, every year they seem to add a few more so the game looks a little different, a little fresher. When they introduced pro-tak in 10, I was happy with the idea and the improvement and this was sort of real time physics, or they were trying to implement real time momentum which is exactly what football needs/is. Momentum is huge/important. Sadly, EA just never executes well, and after a week of pro-tak, I had seen every animation and knew when they would be 'triggered' and how to set up the cpu for a big gain. So, I still wished for RTP. And, finally, with 13, they did it, or tried to do it, and actually, I am still amazed by that game. And, jukes happen/work, stiff arms happen (but, weren't very effective). But, what impressed me the most was after a year of playing that game, I STILL saw plays/tackles that I had NEVER seen. The most gorgeous random play I ever saw was near the release of 25. The cpu caught a screen pass, I NAILED him with the hit stick, the ball came out, my safety was already coming to help out, he dove towards the ball, did a tuck and roll while picking up the football, and ran 50 yds to paydirt. I was BLOWN AWAY!!!! You can't 'can' that animation. (well, I suppose you could), My point being, 'if' you can create a RTP engine, then ANYTHING is possible. And, 13 actually did that pretty well, and with a set of zero sliders, I loved the way that game played. Now, it needed some graphical enhancements, and touchups to gameplay, but I really dug the physics engine and was actually impressed with what ea did (well, madden had to copy from fifa, of course, but still, they did a good job and FINALLY thought outside the box by actually trying to implement physics instead of just filming a million animations and spitting them out on the field when they deem it correct.)
Sadly, for me, they took a giant step backwards with 25, and didn't build 'on top' of 13. Instead, it looks to me like they tried to combine the infinity engine with a canned animation processor, and the result was dreadful. Once again, I'm seeing the same animations over and over, and they just aren't implementing true physics in 25, imo. So, for me, I want a 100% RTP, and they can find a way to implement stiff arms and trucks that incorporate RTP and then we'd have an amazing game!
You know, really, they should probably just rip off the unreal engine like everybody else does for shooters and whatnot. I believe the unreal engine is a physics simulator engine and then programmers program their 'universe' on top of it. That's what I want, and that's what I think madden or any other football game needs to do to be 'real', to feel 'real', to play 'real.' They need to take the unreal engine and develop a 'football universe' out of it with football rules, out of bounds, etc., and add collisions (collision physics, collision detection for quality RBs to know when/where to juke), and make the football it's own object doing it's own thing, then have another collision detection system for WRs, DBs to detect that football object and go for it, then have a collision detection between the WR and DB, and BANG!!! it's Football time, baby!!! lol. Seriously, EA, if you read this, I have proposed something similar before and hope you take heed. Come out with a new system, call it CDS (Collision Detection System). Don't charge me for the name. I don't care. I just want a real football game and that is where it starts, a full on collision detection system where every player understands every other player and the ball as well. Let's do this. It's time.