RAC's post on Maddennation is up. Here is a link:
http://www.maddennation.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=55270
Some highlights (and lowlights for me):
First the good:
- Players can get hurt during practice and this happens more often with more contact drills.
- Assistant Coaches will each have their own philosophy and personality. They will conform to your schemes, but once they leave you they will run their own scheme with wrinkles from your scheme added to their game!
- First I've heard of hiring specific scouting directors.
- It's confirmed that owners will have different personalities, some will spend money like crazy, others won't.
- They don't use the NFL Draft chart for trading picks, but they use a similar point system to decide on how trades should work. They also use an "advanced" trading module for non draft picks that will make trading much more realistic than Madden.
- This is a negative possibly depending upon how it is implemented, but it sounds like players will not "completely" bust, but will vary in how quickly they develop. However, well scouted top 5 picks are going to eventually be good players.
- Live draft in which you have 5 minutes to pick. If you don't pick in that time, your scouting director will make the call. 45 seconds between computer picks, so you better be ready to make a trade quickly if you want to move up.
- They reiterated how trust works, and I think I'm going to like it. I want to try to balance all of the egos of my staff, including my scouting director, coaches, etc. Also, piss a GM off enough and they won't trade with you anymore. Same for agents and their clients.
- The scouting director can look at 8 guys per week throughout the calendar year. This can be guys on the opposing team, free agents, or guys who will be in next year's draft. At the combine, you can scout 25 guys in more depth.
- You can put guys on the IR.
- Wide variety of reasons and timing for coaches to retire.
Negatives:
- Biggest: No in game saves
- No expanded squads, no practice squads.
- The playbook creator only allows for a limited creation of "gadget plays."
- No firings mid season, only at the end of the season.
- Coaches that you face twice a year don't make adjustments based on the earlier game, but the producers hope to add this to next year's version.
- They took out the ability to "lure" away assistants from other teams with a promotion. Instead, assistants will decide that they are ready for a promotion and will announce themselves as FA's looking for a better job and you can bid on them in the pool with other teams also competing for their services. That might be good if it was done for game balancing purposes.
- The playbook editor allows you to customize existing formations and make plays with your customized formations or their base formations. That feature wasn't viewable at E3.
I'm still anxious awaiting this game after reading it, but I hope that there are some busts in the game. I'm also really disappointed that there are no in game saves as I imagine 15 minute quarters would take at least an hour to play.