How to Make Madden Appealing to Text-Simmers

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by SA1NT401

ratings really need to be straightend out....We all know 80% of them are just cosmetic and literally mean squat. Developer should admit the current 0-100 scale is flawed beyond repair due to the engine EA uses.

I think that has less to do with the ratings scale than it does the calculations that determines the success/failure of the plays/players.

You could go 1-15 if you wanted, that wouldn't solve anything if a 1 didn't do much worse than a 15.

[Dark Cloud]

I think sim speed being faster would appeal to text-simmers quite a bit. Some folks just want to see history play out or want to sim years ahead before playing.

[Joshua1207]

NFL Head Coach did everything great. It did not fail miserably.

[LordTC]

NFL Head Coach: I think EA wanted this to fail. In all honesty most of the head coach players bought Head Coach through Madden Collectors edition, and then EA said their wasn't a market for it. Lots of us play more Head Coach than Madden 09 and Madden 10 combined, and the forums for Head Coach still have posts every day.

Ideally EA would got the following route with Madden:

(i) If you don't have a way to use an ability in game then don't rate that ability at all, and don't give players stats for it. Also only have as many different rating points as you can differentiate on, so if you engine doesn't distinguish between 85 and 99 in ratings of 0 to 100 perhaps you should use a 1 to 5 scale.

I think that is the most important change they could possibly make.

As for the statistics. Part of the issue is they want the statistics to match up with the play mode so that people have legitimate fights for things like Sack Leader. If players are getting 40 sacks a season when they play the game you don't want the guy in second place having 22. I think ultimately the solution here is have two settings:

(i) Sim mode -> Tailored for realistic stats, and positions mattering.
(ii) Arcade mode -> Tailored for in-game play.

As for NFL Head Coach, most of the people in the forums got their copy in the Madden Collectors edition, myself include. I play more Head Coach than I do Madden by far. I found Head Coach 06 a little clunky but I wanted to see what Head Coach 09 did for the franchise and it was a great improvement.

If the NFL arcade-oriented Street Mode title came in a special edition bundled with Madden, it would probably have terrible sales also. Why buy it separately if you can get it earlier with Madden Collectors Edition and you're probably going to buy the special edition of Madden anyways.

[King of Kings]

It would be nice if a "sim" actually played like a sim. I don't ever want to see my Jerome Harrison character run through two linebackers by throwing his elbow into their chests while not slowing down, then breaking out of a 9-man gang tackle without any effort and finally skating into the endzone. That would be a good start.

I'm so sick of this excuse for a football "simulation."

[Bellsprout]

If anything, Madden is going to get less in depth, not more. They'd probably rather placate the masses, the people who to be able to play as their favorite team and don't necessarily give all that much of a damn about realism, than the incredibly small text sim crowd.