Madden Should Bring Back Its PS2 Era Substitution System

Feature Article

Submitted on: 06/05/2015 by Jayson Young

Last Thursday, EA Sports released a long list of improvements that football fans will find this August in Madden NFL 16's Connected Franchise mode. But for the hardcore, simulation-minded gamers, the biggest news of the day might have involved an item that EA left off their list.

That afternoon, several posts surfaced from Game Informer editor, Matt Bertz, EA Sports Game Changer, Casey Mosier, and Madden designer, Clint Oldenburg, all suggesting that Madden NFL 16 won't be making any changes to its current substitution system.

If this turns out to be true, then gamers will once again be forced to make all of their formation subs from inside the huddle in Madden NFL 16, while the play clock is winding down. In a sport where one drive is often the difference between a narrow victory and a heartbreaking loss, having to sacrifice several delay of game penalties at the start of every Madden match just to set up all of your offensive substitutions is terrible game design. Plus it can take multiple drives to finally complete all of your defensive substitutions, because the formation selection screen automatically disappears a few seconds after the offense picks their play.

What makes this potential omission all the more irksome, is that Madden used to handle formation-specific substitutions so well. If you own a PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, or PC, you can fire up Madden NFL 08's Franchise mode, click on the "Coach's Corner" option, and easily set up substitutions for any formation in your playbook, including all of your special teams. And unlike in Madden NFL 15, these changes will save permanently, instead of being reset after every game.

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Member Comments

# 41 NoFlyZoneAzCards @ 06/06/15 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelhalljr


	I really like whatever year Brees was on the cover, you could talk guys into not retiring. You could convince one or two guys a season. I had Brett Favre playing til he was 50!! Sent from my QMV7B using Tapatalk

That was madden 2011 I have madden 07,09,11,12,13,25 on Xbox 360

# 42 michaelhalljr @ 06/06/15 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoFlyZoneAzCards


	That was madden 2011 I have madden 07,09,11,12,13,25 on Xbox 360

Thought it was 11. One of my favorites.

Sent from my QMV7B using Tapatalk

# 43 JayD @ 06/06/15 03:22 PM

They could at least fix the broken auto sub feather. It's been broken for several years.

# 44 Sportsworth @ 06/06/15 06:25 PM

Its mind boggling to me why madden hasent added this feature back into the games. Every second in a football game counts and yet they make you substitute players while the clock is getting chewed up. Nice job EA.

# 45 tril @ 06/07/15 09:52 AM

Madden recycles, features. theyll eventually bring it back, call it something else, while at the same time taking out another feature.
Ive come to the conclusion that Madden doesn't expand/add game play features. its most likethy the same number of features year to year.
that is why every year they get that "on the right track/right direction" pass.. its been 10 years plus and they still havent really implemented things that fans want. when they do they take something else out.

# 46 aceinyaface3 @ 06/07/15 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BSchwartz07


	Madden really peaked feature-wise two consoles ago. Now it is all about pumping out a $60 roster update with new "ultimate team" features so you can pay more money to collect digital cards. It has also always blown my mind that you can't split time at any position. Say I have 2 RB's, like I dunno EVERY TEAM IN THE NFL, that I want to share the load equally, can't do it... but I can pay $20 to get Barry Sanders on a fictional team with random guys... so there is that.

This makes so much sense.

I don't question the desire to make more money with basic things. I question the actual depth of knowledge at EA. Makes me wonder how knowledgable these guys actually are. I know at least one of them played college ball. Doesn't seem to be enough. They need at least one D II former coordinator or positions coach or something similar. But it usually takes them so long to perfect a physics engine, the actual game suffers cuz they're not spending time fine tuning other details about the game of football.

# 47 aceinyaface3 @ 06/07/15 10:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pokes404


	Not to take things off topic, but speaking of incredibly useful features from the PS2 era, does anyone else remember the on the fly audible system? Basically, in the play selection screen, if you held down R1 and pressed the corresponding icon, that play was now one of your formation audibles. I used to set 2-3 new formation audibles before calling a play. Then, once I got up to the line of scrimmage, I could read the defense and either run the play I called, or check to one of the formation audibles that I had just set up. I used it a lot in NCAA when trying to mimic the college no-huddle system. A lot of those offenses were based on the idea of lining up quickly, taking a look at how the defense was set, and then getting the final play call in from the sideline. It was great because maybe I didn't always want a WR screen as an audible, but if it was 3rd and 1, it was great to quickly set a WR screen as a formation audible and then call a dive up the middle. Once I got to the line, if the defense was stacked to stop the run and the corner was playing off at all, I could check out to the screen and flip it out to my WR for a conversion (hopefully). I tended to play with average-good teams, but not great or overpowering ones, so I had to be creative sometimes. To get back on topic though, Madden and NCAA had substitutions right on the PS2. I don't know if the change was made to cut down on people putting WRs at TE, their fastest player at QB, and all kinds of other crazy substitutions simply because of the amount of time it takes to do all that (especially while the playclock is winding down). Other than that, I really can't figure out any reason they would have changed it from the PS2 setup.

Pokes, dude! I haven't been logged onto OS since 2009. I was getting on here to make the same argument!

I used to pick a play, and have two quick audibles every time I picked a play. It's more like the way plays are called in games today. It's like the new quick audible system took place of this. But the original audible system was better cuz you had better control of the audibles each play.

In addition, I miss formation shifts. Where you could shift the formation while keeping the same play. It allowed you to manipulate mismatches...again, like the way the game is actually played. An example would be to run an off tackle run play in singleback big. You could formation shift to singleback bunch and run the same play.

In for like one year and disappeared for seemingly no reason...

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