[trey31]

Have you ever noticed over the years that Madden consistently "cheats" or becomes unstoppable at certain points during games? I finally figured out how and why.

I've been testing Madden 08 on PC with mods and editors. There is a tag attached to every play in every playbook with a number, called PLYT (PLaY Tag). These tags are present in every playbook from Madden 04, 08, 09, 12, etc; they're on PS2, 360, PC and even PSP handheld game files. Most of these tags signify different types of run plays (dive, toss, end around, double reverse, QB sweep, sneak, etc) or what type of deep coverage is being used in a Defensive playbook (cover 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc).

Madden's AI uses these tags to determine what play to use (to counter your play choice) during the play call selection screen, and then it uses these tags again during the play to actively defend against your play call.

How do I know this?

While editing a playbook I decided to change a few tags from the right tag to the wrong tag. For instance a Running play's PLYT was changed to a Pass PLYT. The QB still hands off the ball, the RB still runs, but the Defense didn't know what to do. All of the LBs and Safeties and CBs dropped into coverage as though it was a passing play, all the way up to the point where the RB crossed the LOS. This happened consistently during testing, so that rules out it just being a fluke.

So there it is. The giant elephant in the room. Madden AI has no idea what is happening on the field at any given time, on any given play. It is simply reacting to the PLYT tag until the ball crosses the line of scrimmage. At that point it becomes rally time and all 11 defenders instantly begin to converge on the ball carrier.

So there you go. Madden's AI is waaay more simplistic than most of us thought. A little tag in the code with nothing more than one simple number has been "Spy-gating" you for years.