Who was the "football expert" that helped with the design of player logic?

[TheDudeAbides421]

Based on the way this game plays in regards to actual football technique, I am pretty sure the person that was their football expert during development must have been a Pop Warner coach who's son is the starting QB. As a collegiate football coach myself, I would like to present some of the basics of the game that Madden just can't seem to get correct:

1) Offensive Line Play - Supposed professional players can't even block an inside zone scheme properly. The double team is never executed properly and the release to the linebacker is 85% of the time done incorrectly. The developers gave us as players offensive line play that is not even close to being fundamentally sound. Inside zone is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as the pass protection schemes are even worse when trying to use actual football fundamentals. This is a horrible, horrible design by the devs and something they have been promising to improve upon since 2007.

2) Defensive Pass Coverage - The number of times my defenders will just sit in their zone and watch as receivers just galavant through their area is appalling. Every game I watch as LB's allow underneath routes to cross their face with no attempt at a reroute or a passage to the next zone defender, or they allow the #3 WR to release vertically with no effort to body and run with the route. The pass coverage logic in this game (for the player's team) is horrid. I can't see how anyone that has ever been associated with football at the high school level or higher could pass this off as acceptable.

3) Computer QBs complete 90% of 3rd down passes - It doesn't matter if it is 3rd & 18 or 3rd & 4 the CPU will just complete the pass to a receiver that should be theoretically covered based on the called defense -- almost every time. I can call zone, man, or combo coverages and they all fail. It happens so often that it feels like it is hardcoded into the game and it is BS.

These are game-breaking issues to many of the football simulation fans out there like myself and I cannot believe that these issues that have been happening for over a DECADE have not even been remotely addressed. I will just speak for myself, as a simulation football fan, that the developers intend to only improve the MUT and competitive game-modes is garbage. MUT might bring them considerable revenue but the players like myself and so many others that have been buying Madden games since the 90s -- the players that allowed this franchise to become what it is -- are flabbergasted by this effort you call simulation football.

This is definitely a personal rant after another extremely disappointing game of Madden; however, these are issues that have handicapped the game for over a decade (I know there are a lot of other issues, but these specific ones really chap my a**).

EA Sports developers, shame on you for this abomination of the beautiful game I love.

[tril]

yup another year of Madden falling short.
at this point, the developers need to be more forthright on here, explaining their reasons for the way things are coded. explain the difficulties in why they cant solve certain issues, etc. until then,

Madden to me is just a marketing campaign.

Madden has been unfulfilling since the PS2/XBOX days. this gen and last gen have been extremely disappointing.

[roadman]

I concur.

The legacy coding at some point needs to go, but I've heard there is miles and miles of legacy coding in the game.

I've noticed the first two issues noticeably with this years game, but not so much #3 when I bring the heat. Also, to combat robo QB, I eliminate the tight spiral trait for the opposing QB each game.

[edaddy]

Quote: Originally Posted by tril

yup another year of Madden falling short. at this point, the developers need to be more forthright on here, explaining their reasons for the way things are coded. explain the difficulties in why they cant solve certain issues, etc. until then, Madden to me is just a marketing campaign. Madden has been unfulfilling since the PS2/XBOX days. this gen and last gen have been extremely disappointing.

While I agree with your logic and the thread in general I have said it many times the one thing we can't blame is the developers for not telling us their thought process and reasoning behind their decisions..In a nutshell the sim aspects we are looking for just isn't fun to them and they haven't had the capability to seperate modes this was actually said by a developer..The game was geared for competitive crowd from the outset and all were given ample warnings via videos , interviews, etc..while I don't agree with any of their decisions I have to say they did warn us...

[ParaAut]

At some point we have to accept that Madden is a football GAME developed and published by a revenue based COMPANY.


While they will do some things designed for the community, they will base decision on possible revenue and what they think will work best in that regard for now and the next year. I'm quite sure they have many employees (marketing guys, developers, managers,...) aiming to produce a more sim game, but don't have all the resources needed or just different priorities.


One thing I found quite helpful:
Don't true to over-analyze the game with all kinds of replay or camera angles, you will always find something. Just take the game as it is and have fun, then it's a pretty good game.
You are not watching NFL on Sundays and only look at every OL mistake the whole game.

[Shosum13]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheDudeAbides421

Based on the way this game plays in regards to actual football technique, I am pretty sure the person that was their football expert during development must have been a Pop Warner coach who's son is the starting QB. As a collegiate football coach myself, I would like to present some of the basics of the game that Madden just can't seem to get correct: 1) Offensive Line Play - Supposed professional players can't even block an inside zone scheme properly. The double team is never executed properly and the release to the linebacker is 85% of the time done incorrectly. The developers gave us as players offensive line play that is not even close to being fundamentally sound. Inside zone is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as the pass protection schemes are even worse when trying to use actual football fundamentals. This is a horrible, horrible design by the devs and something they have been promising to improve upon since 2007. 2) Defensive Pass Coverage - The number of times my defenders will just sit in their zone and watch as receivers just galavant through their area is appalling. Every game I watch as LB's allow underneath routes to cross their face with no attempt at a reroute or a passage to the next zone defender, or they allow the #3 WR to release vertically with no effort to body and run with the route. The pass coverage logic in this game (for the player's team) is horrid. I can't see how anyone that has ever been associated with football at the high school level or higher could pass this off as acceptable. 3) Computer QBs complete 90% of 3rd down passes - It doesn't matter if it is 3rd & 18 or 3rd & 4 the CPU will just complete the pass to a receiver that should be theoretically covered based on the called defense -- almost every time. I can call zone, man, or combo coverages and they all fail. It happens so often that it feels like it is hardcoded into the game and it is BS. These are game-breaking issues to many of the football simulation fans out there like myself and I cannot believe that these issues that have been happening for over a DECADE have not even been remotely addressed. I will just speak for myself, as a simulation football fan, that the developers intend to only improve the MUT and competitive game-modes is garbage. MUT might bring them considerable revenue but the players like myself and so many others that have been buying Madden games since the 90s -- the players that allowed this franchise to become what it is -- are flabbergasted by this effort you call simulation football. This is definitely a personal rant after another extremely disappointing game of Madden; however, these are issues that have handicapped the game for over a decade (I know there are a lot of other issues, but these specific ones really chap my a**). EA Sports developers, shame on you for this abomination of the beautiful game I love.

Agree with all of your points here, it's frustrating that some of the basics feel like they still haven't really been worked on. I know it's a video game so it's never going to be a perfect representation, but I feel like they just need to spend a year where they only focus on improving the basics. I try to sit back and enjoy the game for what it is realizing that it's just a video game, but it gets harder every year as i have less time to play games.

Line play is one of the least improved elements of this game. Is it better than past years? Yes, but there are still too many moments that leave you wondering why they can't get it right. In the run game there are still too many times where your lead blocker just looks lost and runs in to space, whether it be a pulling gaurd or the fullback. I also wish they could make the interaction between the OL and DL feel more organic rather than feel like as a defender you are suctioned in to a blocking animation.

The pass coverage, while they have made some decent improvements still leaves a lot to be desired. Especially the AI for the defenders on the users team, it feels like when playing the CPU their defenders have a much easier time covering the receivers. Zone coverage gets incredibly frustrating at times. One of the main things that bothers me is zone defenders don't flow with the play inside their zone. Instead they just get to a spot and sit there, often times watching as a WR catches a ball just underneath them without even making an attempt to break on the route.

I will say, robo QB still is in effect sometimes on the higher difficulties, but much less often than in previous maddens. I definitely see the same results on 3rd downs as you are seeing though. The CPU is way too successful at converting 3rd and very long. It'll be like 3rd and 20 and after making nice plays on 1st and end down all of a sudden my safeties forget how to play in coverage. I think that's what frustrates me most about this. Instead of the CPU converting a 3rd and long because their star receiver makes a nice catch in coverage the game usually seems to dumb down your DBs in coverage leaving a WR or TE wide open down field.

I just played two games last night for the first time in almost two weeks because of these frustrations, I needed a little madden break. It's funny yesterday I went to gamestop to pick up NHL19 because I had heard some good things and there was a guy in there trading in his copy of Madden for a new copy of NHL. He was complaining to the guy at the counter about the same things that we are talking about in this thread and said he just couldn't do it anymore.

[edaddy]

Quote: Originally Posted by ParaAut

At some point we have to accept that Madden is a football GAME developed and published by a revenue based COMPANY. While they will do some things designed for the community, they will base decision on possible revenue and what they think will work best in that regard for now and the next year. I'm quite sure they have many employees (marketing guys, developers, managers,...) aiming to produce a more sim game, but don't have all the resources needed or just different priorities. One thing I found quite helpful: Don't true to over-analyze the game with all kinds of replay or camera angles, you will always find something. Just take the game as it is and have fun, then it's a pretty good game. You are not watching NFL on Sundays and only look at every OL mistake the whole game.

While I agree with you on some points Madden is marketed as simulation football and furthermore you have a sim mode that doesn't adhere to many of the basic fundamentals of football..On top of that the same fundamental flaws are being overlooked year after year..

[GoBlue7]

I used to love Madden and was able to find a way to have fun with it. This year it really just kind of sucks. Gameplay on all pro w/ sliders stale, boring, and not very challenging. I am tired of getting out to 3 TD leads over CPU where they keep heaving lazy deep balls up that I intercept constantly.

All Madden w/ sliders is just outright awful. Robo CPU QB is very much a factor and as mentioned above, you can't stop them on 3rd down. The CPU just walks down the field every drive, meanwhile I struggle to even score a a single touchdown and throw a billion picks because their defensive player jumps the route every time. My biggest complaint is how almost every time the user QB is sacked, it results in a fumble recovery for the CPU. Every game ends up as a blow out. The way the game plays between all pro and all madden is too different, and sliders have not been able to balance the game out for me this year. I regret buying digital, otherwise I would of probably gotten rid of it.