Madden NFL 18: Gameplay Breakdown

[RaychelSnr]

Madden '18's gameplay will seem immediately familiar, but that doesn't mean there have not been some...

Written By: Mike Lowe

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[GoodyBucs]

I'm with you in feeling default all-pro and sim is a great mix. I've even been seeing realistic completions percentages for both teams (between 58-65%). I think if they can just find a way for the CPU QB to throw a pass away in or out of the pocket they will have a darn fine game this season.

[Rebel10]

I've been pretty disappointed with All Pro and Sim thus far. Seems like QB accuracy is almost higher than it was last year and in past years, even with sliders tweaked so that the CPU QB is at '30 accuracy.' I'm rarely seeing more than 5 incomplete passes a game across both teams, with the CPU regularly throwing 85-90%, and humans also throwing similarly.

Simulation mode, to me, really feels like Madden '17.5. I'm really liking the running game so far, with good offensive lines being really effective, while bad defensive fronts get run over both by the CPU and humans. It's nice to see the holes open up. But through the air the game feels like a step back. Defenders cannot play zone, and man has only marginally been improved, so the result is wide open players whenever a zone is played, and defensive backs that stop and stutter in man. It feels like a regression for the series and one that Im surprised EA released the game in this state, defensively.

[Peter_OS]

Quote:

?"More of a visual than gameplay issue, but the vast majority of in-between-play cut scenes are of my coach. The majority of those are of him uppercutting the air, even after a 3 yard gain by my

opponent. The game does have some nice cut scenes to players who made
the tackle, for instance, but there needs to be more of these and more
scenes with graphical overlays."

my number one beef! the presentation needs an overhaul and improvement for next year.

[jmel07]

I play Madden, primarily, against friends, in-person, head to head. *This includes a large annual tournament.
For me, the glaring issue for quite some time has been the defensive play against the pass. Two types of play where I see the worst of the AI controlled (and CPU in CPU games) human defenses are the slants and shallow or deep drags, as well as the *"Stick" plays.*
On the former, it's difficult to watch an opponent shred you in either man or zone with no great way to defend against it. I'm not sure if this has to do with the type of leverage (inside vs. outside) that the AI deploys in general on the CBs, or the fact that the LBs and SS/FSs can't seem to settle into the zone where they need to be to take away the space the routes call for.
On the Stick plays, or any route with an inside/outside/sit-down option to the route, the offensive AI seems to win, with the pass catcher settling to wherever the defensive player isn't. It would be nice to see the AI jump these routes or engage earlier in the route even if it is a zone play.
This website does a great job of breaking down the stick route, and even mentions the counter-punch to when the defense begins to try and overplay the Stick.
http://www.syedschemes.com/stick-concept-with-variations/
I'd very much welcome a little more adaptive defensive AI on Madden to improve the user's creativity during play. I don't mind digging around for a couple of concepts that work, but when you've got a play you can run with a 90% success rate at 4-9 yards a clip, that's a bad/non-realistic outcome.

[Sheba2011]

Pretty good write up, overall I like the gameplay a lot this year but it does need some patching. Two things I absolutely agree with here:

Target passing - it's a nice concept but it's something I will never actually use, in fact I wish you could turn it off in Longshot (which I did enjoy a lot).

Cutscenes - This was a problem last year as well. After every single play you see your coach do one of the same three animations.

[Qb]

Yes, there's no reason accelerated clock should be off for the last two minutes. If you huddle, you should get the runoff, that's what it's there to simulate. It would encourage more strategic use of the no huddle offense.

[DeuceDouglas]

Agree with pretty much everything in the article. Having the option to have accelerated clock under two minutes would be really nice. The whole pace of the game changes when you get under two minutes because you can rattle off play after play in under ten seconds, just not realistic.

The running game is really solid IMO. Fight from RB's, not getting stuck on lineman, and the ball carrier moves are all huge positives and make the running game feel great and so much better than 17. Fluid is a great word to use to describe it.

Defense and QB AI are the only huge issues I have with gameplay right now and overall I'm having a lot of fun and think gameplay is nice. Fix those two things and I might actually be able to force myself to play CFM.