Madden NFL 15: What Worked and What Didn't Work

Feature Article

Submitted on: 03/20/2015 by Ben Vollmer

By most standards, Madden NFL 15 was the best game the series had seen in more than five years. It wasn't a giant leap forward, but it cleaned up some legacy issues and didn't introduce more than one or two (user sacks, we're looking at you).

Yet, the game's most noticeable flaw is that we haven't seen that leap forward that Madden so desperately needs. The series fails to take any big chances and the ones it does take aren't particularly loved by consumers.

With that in mind, let's look at Madden NFL 15's big back of the box additions and review what worked and what didn't work for consumers...

"Deliver on Defense": This is a toss-up. On one hand, defense functioned a lot better than it has in recent years. Games had, at the very least, the capacity for a low-scoring affair. The problem? Defense still wasn't that fun, and that was the whole idea behind the tackle-cone and new tackling mechanics. The A.I. was a bit better, but it would have been nearly impossible for it to have not been. All the same, the focus on gameplay is much appreciated and playing defense was better than it has been.

Verdict: Worked

"Know Your Opponent": The idea is clever. Introducing a statistics mechanic has the basis for a good idea, but it never feels fully realized in Madden '15. The game is already too one-sided with the A.I. being as (frequently) dumb as it is, especially with play-calling. Being able to further predict what they were going to do as a user just felt unnecessary. Online, the feature had a much better use but still felt unpolished and too bare-bones. In the future, it would be great if play-calling A.I. was good enough for this feature to aid in a chess match of play-calling.

Verdict: Didn't Work

"NFL Films Inspired Presentation": Look, until the commentary doesn't feel boring and redundant, the presentation isn't going to be where it needs to be. Games felt more like a broadcast than they used to, but again, that isn't saying much. The development team deserves credit for knowing where they need to improve, but they've still yet to deliver.

Verdict: Didn't Work

"Player Sense and War in the Trenches 2.0": The change in player A.I. as well as pass-rushing was definitely noticeable. Ends got around the edges and forced pocket pressure from the inside, and tackles shoved their way up the middle until the QB was forced to scramble. The upgrade was certainly noticeable, even if the game isn't quite up to speed in this department. As far as "Player Sense" goes, there still is about zero of it. Players don't seek after the ball, CPU QB's take sacks like they are paid to do so, and ball-carriers don't hit holes like they should. Even though there was some improvement, you had to look pretty hard to find it.

Verdict: Didn't Work

What do you think? Which features worked and which didn't work?

Madden NFL 15 Videos

Member Comments

# 41 Trick13 @ 03/24/15 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaceMask


	They tried to do a number of things like fix passing trajectories (Madden 12), put in new pass catch animations and passing spaces (Madden 13), but the bottom line is, everything is fundamentally flawed from the snap, to the drop, to the set, how receivers attack space and interact with DB's, and how the o-line approaches pass blocking assignments. So my educated guess would be that in order to get to the point of having route-based passing, the entire passing game would have to be overhauled. I want that to happen badly, but realistically, I can't see it happening.

Yes, they did all that you mentioned, but all it did was change the way in which players exploited the game. Route based passing eliminates a ton of that - and EA has had it in the pass. Granted, it was a button feature, kind of like the stupid as all get out "precision modifier", but it was in the game. All they have to do is put it back in and make it constant (meaning no trigger holding).

Would it fix everything, no. It would, however, fix a ton of stuff...

And don't try to sell me "it won't work 2 generations have gone by" because we are still dealing with glitches from PS2 era - so it is obviously tech built on top of tech built on top of tech...

# 42 Trick13 @ 03/24/15 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bringbacksimfootball


	What exactly is he trying to sell you on? Are we forgetting how broken this is? You said yourself that we're still dealing with legacy issues, and that's true. He's just stating the reality that to get to the point of having solid route based passing, they would have to fix the entire way passing offense plays. Every part of an offensive pass play in Madden has an issue, so it's not like you can just do one thing and fix the passing game, you have to revamp everything because football is based a lot on timing, if one part is off you likely have a breakdown. Just the blocking issues alone disrupt that, and if that's disrupted the timing of the entire pass play is disrupted. It may be true that they've just been heaping new on top of very old for a long time, even Clint Oldenburg has admitted as much. But, the problem with passing is at the core, not just what they've newly thrown on. Madden's passing has been fundamentally flawed for a long time. You can only band-aid for so long until it's apparent that you need a fresh start. That's where this is at this point.

But you know as well as I do - we are not getting a fresh start. EA's idiot suits are not going to allow the devs the resources to build it from scratch. I know it isn't ideal, heck if it was we wouldn't be having this discussion.

My point is, given that EA is not going to "rebuild anything from scratch" - at least route based passing would eliminate some issues.

Obviously it isn't going to be perfect - considering we still have players skating around, warping through each other, running four steps where only one foot actually touches the turf, no adaptive AI, player sense was a joke, and on and on.

I don't disagree with anyone who wants the passing game to be completely redone - I just don't believe we will ever see that...

# 43 speedtrucker @ 03/24/15 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sportyguyfl31


	"Confidence" needs to be scrapped. It creates superstars out of ordinary players, and completely throws online leagues out of balance. The same handful of users stay at or near the top every season because the more you win, the more of a PED Boost, the confidence rating gives you. On the otherside, if you are struggling, trying to rebuild a bad team, or just plain not that good, confidence hits will just tank your team and make them virtually impossible to play with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trick13


	Great point. I don't know if it needs to be removed, but it definitely needs some serious tweaking. I would like to see the offseason bring about a normalizing effect - players' confidence would "gravitate" back to 50, no matter if they were above or below. Say a SB winning team - currently ends the season at 99 confidence nearly across the board - 99 confidence players should gravitate back to around 60 confidence. You should see a range in the offseason of 40-60. To your point about the better teams/players always being "on the juice" the confidence scale should shift in a sort of way - meaning the guy who just won the SB would get less confidence for his success than a guy coming off 6-10 year for the same stats. Goals for players and teams should be dictated, in part, by the previous season. This would mean that a 7-9 team would have lower stat/win thresholds for improvement than a team coming off 10-6. They could call it "Adaptive Progression System" or the "CFM's Parity Progression System" This would be great as well for CFMs where there are a limited number of user teams and the CPU generally stinking at everything they attempt to do....

This is very true, for example my CFM is just like this.
my Rams team started 0-6, was 1-9 before finishing the season on a 5-1 run that I had to fight through massive confidence hits despite my team on a win streak where we were winning close games. my guys would still see "shoulda made that INT" or "shoulda made that catch" etc and never really turned any confidence around. nor is it reflected in the season outlook other than the random generated story during the offseason.

meanwhile one guy goes 12-0 and coasts into the playoffs finishing on a 3 game losing streak as he is resting players. barely any confidence lost and he even lost the divisional matchup yet nothing is affected because they are 13-3.

so my best RB with a 98 carry can't keep from fumbling despite his rushing yardage being great to finish the season strong because his Confidence it in a hole.

there has to be a flex system that would adjust with team outlooks. a team like the Rams in "rebuilding" mode would have less negative flux than a team like the Seahawks in "Win NOW" mode. on the same note, the Rams would have higher spikes and drops with positive confidence creating the idea "maybe this team can make it to the playoffs! oops, not so fast we are still too young/old/inexperienced". while the Seahawks would have less drops in a high confidence player with 2 losses in a row because "we are fine, we are still 8-3 and in first place...etc".

# 44 droopizzle34 @ 03/24/15 10:01 PM

*cues broken record*:

as long as Madden has no competition, there will be no leap forward. Its plain and simple fellas.

# 45 Biizz713 @ 03/25/15 12:10 AM

the conservative tackle... what were they thinking?

# 46 Trick13 @ 03/25/15 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bringbacksimfootball


	The problem is that you're expecting a positive effect/outcome to happen without them first addressing the negative cause preventing it. Of course route-based passing would be great, but you're not going to get that to work without the other issues being addressed first.

No, the problem is you are expecting EA to address the underlying issues - and every person who comes to these forums knows good and well that will never happen. We have been over the enumerate reasons for their lack of "give a ____" so many times - they are hamstrung by time, money, moronic share holders, dipstick executives who would not know a football if "Jimmy Dix" broke their damn nose with one.

My point is that EA has almost always taken a band aid approach - "all time route based passing", even within the current mess, is a band aid that would alleviate some inherent issues within Madden game play. For instance, it could end the "change route via pass timing garbage" and eliminate the "triple option nature" of double move routes.

Is it the fix we want, heck no. But it is far more likely to be done by EA than what needs to be done...

# 47 beastmode2013 @ 03/25/15 02:43 PM

Better. Running. Animations.

I will never understand how they keep getting WORSE

# 48 Trick13 @ 03/25/15 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaceMask


	I don't think he's expecting them to do anything. If you've read any of his posts, he knows better than most about Tiburon's apathy towards a variety of things, since he had a lot of interaction with them over the years face to face. The second point you're refusing to understand is that this is something that can't simply be band-aided. I don't know your level of football knowledge, but it wouldn't require an advanced knowledge of football to recognize that route timing is going to be hampered by bad blocking, and then add on the issue with the way WR's run routes in Madden and there is a whole other issue that would need to be addressed with AI and animations before you can even get to working on the main goal. There is really nothing more to it.

I understand completely, I understand that RR means nothing in terms of what the players do. They always run perfect depths before they cut, the cuts are always exactly the same, the Dline never generates pressure on its own, the DBs leave their backpedal too early most often, off coverage has no benefit in Madden, as it is more easily beat deep than normal man coverage due to the way DBs "charge" the route even when there is no break by the receiver and then fall in behind them, there are still routes that are "auto-free-releases" because no matter what input you give the DB he will not get a hand on the receiver no matter the disparity between the PRS/REL ratings - I call them nano routes and of course the ball physics is a giant fail - trajectories of passes down the middle leave a ton to be desired.

That is not even half of what I understand, but if they fixed all of that (not happening) the ball would still be "tethered" to receivers, and I am saying that is where they should start from - they should start with route based passing, because nothing they fix before hand will matter if you can still change routes based on pass timing and pass leading...

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