In part two of 4th and Inches (read part one here), Kushmir Hassan lists the remaining fixes that he thinks would greatly improve the gameplay in Madden 10.
1. Rocket Catch – I watched a friend play online and witnessed his opponent getting interception after interception by clicking on the defender, going to the spot, turning around and leaping up to make picks. I also recently played a guy who used the Bears and did the rocket catch on the offensive side of the ball. My opponent was on his own 25-yard line with 10 seconds to go before the half. He called a play-action pass and did exactly the same thing that occurred in the defensive situation I explained above. Essentially, my opponent threw the ball to Devin Hester (frighteningly average at a 71), and Hester was able to leap up and take the ball away from Asante Samuel (95) and Quintin Mikell (86) who were playing a Cover 2 Man. My defenders never even jumped. Giving users the ability to trigger certain animations has always caused problems in Madden. A better system would allow us to press a button to make a "play" on the ball, but jumping diving and other animations would be triggered by a player’s attributes.
2. Press Coverage – Hold on, before you guys even start, I’m really not complaining -- much. The bump-and-run coverage is well done this year. My gripes just deal with trying to make it a tad more realistic in the future. Few teams, if any, have the personnel to use press coverage on every play (or even on every third and long), but we see this done all the time in Madden without sufficient consequences. What about a system that uses more fatigue when someone uses press coverage? It would even be nice if there were occasional defensive holding, illegal contact and pass interference penalties when using press coverage -- there would be more risk and reward involved this way.
3. Pass Defenses Vs. Run Formations – Still a problem after all this time? Well, sort of. It’s not that it's impossible to run the ball against these formations, it’s just that the run game should be a little more effective against pass defenses. Let’s see more double teams at the point of attack and more “push” and movement overall when O-linemen block linebackers and defensive backs.
4. Excessive Drop Backs – What has been done to emphasize pocket passing is good. But defensive linemen get caught up in the offensive line a little too often, which leads to players sprinting backwards and passing with effectiveness from 20 yards outside the pocket. I applaud the effort, but let’s also use penalties to do away with this once and for all.
5. No Huddle – I absolutely love the way fatigue has seriously hampered the no-huddle offense. But in the past, the occasional false starts that occurred were very realistic and really enhanced gameplay. Let’s see them brought back -- but at a much lower rate than before.
6. Challenges – There seems to be a disconnect/freezing issue that sometimes occurs when challenging plays online. My negative experience occurred when I challenged the spot, but I have been given other examples where users were challenging fumbles or touchdowns. This should be patched as soon as possible.
7. Collision Detection – Pro-Tak has its moments, but in all honestly, I thought we were getting a game where jumping "through" players was a thing of the past. However, there are still too many instances where this happens, which seriously affects gameplay. It leaves us at a serious disadvantage when attempting a tackle but the animation prevents us from hitting the ball carrier. We need a system where a tackler/blocker is incorporated in the collision every time.
8. Screen Plays – While I like the fact that the screen game is more effective, it needs a more effective counter. It’s totally understandable when a user sits back in a non-aggressive zone or blitzes too many players and gets beat on a screen play. The problem is, we see too many instances where we call a man defense without blitzing, yet offenses are still able to make big plays with the screen pass. Defenses like Man Cover 2 and Cover 1 should be effective screen counters. And what about the linebackers and D-linemen with high awareness ratings? Shouldn’t we see them sniff out screens at a reasonable rate? (The answer is yes.)
9. Forward Progress – Another fix that needs to happen involves specific animations where players are forced to run backwards outside of user control. For some reason the Madden officials do not chart our forward progress, so the result is a 3-yard run that quite easily turns into a 2-yard loss.
10. Defensive Matchups – While most of us lobbied hard for the return of this great feature, it needs patching because it is somewhat broken. While the mechanic that helps us isolate wide receivers with a certain cornerback works, other cornerbacks sometimes don't seem to know who to cover -- resulting in receivers that are completely uncovered. While mistakes happen, this is a feature that must be patched. (As an aside, it would also be nice if you could figure out where certain defensive players were on the field at all times -- sometimes DeMarcus Ware switches sides or a cornerback stays with one receiver the whole game. It would be ideal if you could always watch out for those big-time defensive players on each play.)
Feature Article
4th and Inches (Part Two)
Submitted on: 09/22/2009 by
Kushmir Hassan
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