What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

[Junior Moe]

I'll quote a post I made about Madden passing 5 years ago.

"An idea to make Awareness matter in Madden considering EA already uses this to a certain extent (just give us the OPTION to turn it off). In Madden playing as a rookie or a seasoned veteran plays the same for the user. There is no penalty for the user playing with a rookie. I think that a good (and fairly simple) way for EA to somewhat mimic the struggles of playing with a rookie in Madden would be to have the "?" marks that pop up in place of your receiver icon in NCAA when your QB is rattled; do the same in Madden if the player you are controlling has low awareness and is under pressure. So if your playing with a rook and you have a great offensive line and never get touched everything plays out the way it does in Madden now. The QB is only limited by his physical ability. But if (or as) the pocket breaks down the kid should get “rattled”.

Outside of the 2 primary receivers and the HB I wouldn’t mind having the 3rd, 4th, and 5th options (check-downs) have the “?” mark above there heads. And depending on the AWR of the QB (say low 60s) have the accuracy slightly affected as well. So if you really know your team you can still run an effective offense but have to take the necessary precautions a real coach probably would with an inexperienced QB to minimize turnovers. It would also add value to Franchise mode. Maybe they could have it so that the biggest AWR jump for QBs happen during their 3rd season. So now if your Franchise QB is out there as a rookie behind a crappy line he’s (you) are more likely to make those “rookie mistakes”. Maybe once the AWR is above 80 all of the receiver icons stay onscreen, regardless of the pressure but the QB can be “rattled” in big games (Rivalry, Playoffs, Super Bowl). And 90 is reserved for the clutch big game Qbs (Manning, Brees, Brady). This would actually make addressing the Offensive Line mean something to have any hope of having a successful season, just like the NFL. Thoughts…"

Granted that was mainly about the affect AWR would have on the passing game. But I truly believe that something innovative, and yes, even random and restrictive needs to be added to the passing game to make it more complex. As with all things, it should be optional. But I want to literally have to change my entire play style and game plan if an elite QB like Brady goes down.

[Kingd803]

If you play video games professionally you might need to turn in your man card. In fact I think it's crap people get paid to do such crap. Same with these youtube stars. It's BS that I work my butt off all day actually learning a trade that very few people can do.

Now people are telling me that because of these same people were not getting features for a more realstic football game? Even more crap.

/minirant

[Greencollarbaseball]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

Why couldn't there be both? A tourney setting where you don't have inaccurate passes or open drops, or whatever tournament players complain about as the default in H2H online play. And a "simulation" setting where you get more of the randomness that is the default for franchise mode, but make both styles available for all modes.

I don't get why it always has to be one or the other with madden.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[roadman]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

Why couldn't there be both? A tourney setting where you don't have inaccurate passes or open drops, or whatever tournament players complain about as the default in H2H online play. And a "simulation" setting where you get more of the randomness that is the default for franchise mode, but make both styles available for all modes.

I don't get why it always has to be one or the other with madden.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's a point that has been brought up time and time again over the past few years. No one has the answer to that.

[kwpit79]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

These same tourney players are OK with paying real money to buy MUT cards, when what they draw is random, but are against having randomness in the game? I mean, I know fumbling is based off of a few factors that aren't random, but I bet some random dice rolls also take place.

[roadman]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

It's a totally different ballgame when the stakes are high.

[tril]

Stage 5: Game Management

a. Varies: As you break huddle, the play clock runoff is based on a QB's awareness.

this should be based off of time it takes to pick a play and factor in the time it takes to sub different players/packages into a game.
players running on and off the field should be factored into a sim element of the game. this feature should be animated into the game also. and should also be factored into the defensive side of the ball.

with this type of subbing you can also add penalties -like to many players on the field, cause players didnt get on and off the field on time.
another layer of false starts could be factored in more organically also. players not completely set after they get subbed into the game. and the qb snaps the ball

for passing, either go the rout of Back Breaker with passing, or have the user catch be completely manual, and have different timing windows based on the defender and receiver ratings. the better the receiver, the bigger the timing window for the user catch.

[Hooe]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

It's a point that has been brought up time and time again over the past few years. No one has the answer to that.

The recent discussion in the EA Sports UFC forum about the newest game lacking sliders might provide some insight.

tl;dr - options cost more man-hours than one might initially be led to believe, and dev teams optimize their man-hours to get the most bang for their buck.

[roadman]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

The recent discussion in the EA Sports UFC forum about the newest game lacking sliders might provide some insight.

tl;dr - options cost more man-hours than one might initially be led to believe, and dev teams optimize their man-hours to get the most bang for their buck.

Yeah, I was afraid that might be the answer, but didn't want to speculate and find out I was wrong later on.

[IdleRace]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

I don't think you would be saying that if it was you that lost the 25 grand on a dice roll on the last play of the game. Tourney players want nothing of that.

And this is absolutely the reason why there are no bad snaps in Madden.

25k is not worth having Madden more arcade. You can say why go to a NFL game when you can save money and go to a arena football game.

[roadman]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

I want Madden to be sim as well, but if I was playing for $25K and had a chance to win, I'm not walking away from it.

Going to a pro vs arena game is apples to oranges to 25K, sorry.

And the topic is starting to drift off topic. It should go back to discussing the article.

[jfsolo]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

While it still needs to be refined further, I feel like the addition of working penalty sliders allowed for a pretty solid win-win this year. Solo CFM players were able to have a realistic number of penalties, while online was tuned to not have non-User created flags. A minority of H2H players were upset about penalties being lacking in their online games, but something has to give in these situation.

I'm hopeful that all the sliders will be further improved to allow the franchise player to tune the game to a more authentic experience. As has been discussed, the man-hours necessary to implement some of these changes will be the deciding factor on how many of these kinds of improvements we'll see.

[IdleRace]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

Simple fix for the the online players.

Arcade mode on/off

Online can have no injury's, stamina, penalty's.

I work for the Packers in IT and I am the one that setups up Madden in the game room for the players. Not one player wants the game arcade. They all want Sim.

[grodbetatted]

I would be ok with a lot of that stuff, but fumbling snaps and stumbling on the snaps would become irritating only because you have no control over that.. yea i want as much of a sim aspect as possible, but i also want total control. Like if there is a control for snaps other than hiking and like a control for the catch and drop back and if you mistimed it, then there are consequences then i would be ok with that.

[Cajungodfather]

Re: What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

Foremost, let me be clear and say I'm firmly in the "sim" bucket of players and would be cool with seeing all these changes. That said, let me present a counterpoint:



You are a professional Madden player (yes, they exist; I was surprised to learn this too). You are playing in the finals of the Madden Challenge with your Ultimate Team against some other highly-ranked Madden player. You have 4th and goal on your opponent's goal line with four seconds left, needing a touchdown to win the game. You call a draw play out of a shotgun spread formation (for whatever reason, the play call isn't the important part here). When you go to snap the ball, the center sails the ball over your QB's head. Your QB recovers the ball, but is promptly tackled. Your opponent wins the Madden Challenge and the $25,000 prize, the game ultimately decided on essentially a dice roll.



This is the sort of play tournament players absolutely to not want in the game. Could it happen in real football? Absolutely. In a competitive video gaming environment where user skill is the preferred arbiter of success? This sort of randomness is absolutely detrimental to that experience.



Heck, the tourney guys don't even really like wide-open incomplete passes; their feeling is that, as long as they make the right read, if the guy is open, they should complete the pass. From their perspective where user skill should trump all, is their opinion wrong? I don't think so. I also don't think it's proper to just tell these players to "deal with it", given that they are just as large and vital a part of Madden's audience as the sim players are. We're not more important than them, and they aren't more important than us.

I think you make a good point, by I fundamentally disagree with this. I do think you are right, that a tourney player wouldn't want this in the game, BUT we are talking about making a football simulation. If you don't want your qb to fumble the snap with :02 left, don't use a qb with low awareness. There is a reason good teams are good in the NFL, and I feel it should be for the same reasons in madden. If I use a good team, and you use a good team, the better coach(user) should win 9/10 times. Biggest problem I've seen a lot of guys have is because a guy can take a team with speed skill players and exploit the game. I'd much rather have to beat someone on Witt rather than exploiting the game, which I feel this passing model would help a lot with. It would be a huge step towards more of a football simulation, instead of just a video game.

In all honesty, EA could easily make two madden football games. One for arcade/tourney players and one strictly dedicated to a football simulation. This would be the only way to cater to everyone at this point, IMO.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk