Two Weeks of Madden 09, and Official Patch News!

[poster]

What about fatigue on defense or in general? Can that not be fixed/patched? I was about to Ebay Madden due to issues I have with the game, but I will wait now due to the patch and give it a chance. Thanks Ian.

[labguy]

Thanks for the update Ian. The list of fixes was quite extensive. I'll save the rant about QA work and why there were so many issues to begin with for another time. I don't feel the need to be a killjoy at every opportunity.

I would like to ask about the CPU AI in regards to clock management. I did not see this addressed in the patch. So I accept the fact that we will just have to live with it for 09. Can you please make sure it is addressed for 10 though? I have only played 1/2 a season on Franchise mode thus far and the CPU has done some ignorant things like every other game. Here are a few examples:

1) CPU punted on 3rd down once (no logical reason for this)
2) CPU refuses to throw into endzone at end of half or game
3) CPU called timeout at end of half which allowed me chance to kick FG. I was out of TO's myself and got tackled in bounds.
4) CPU runs ball under 2 mins left and losing.

I just hope this is something that will be addressed to make the game more enjoyable. Kind of takes the exceitment out of a close game if you know CPU isn't going to be agressive in trying to win at the end.

[JayBee74]

Great news. Thanks for listening to us! (Would like to see saved highlights in full screen, but I think I'm the only one who complained)

[AlexBrady]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

Well as I post this it’s officially been exactly two weeks since Madden officially launched, and wow it sure has been a busy time for us. I truly hope everyone is enjoying the game, and I wanted to drop an update on some things we’ve been working on for our 2nd patch. We feel that without a doubt this encapsulates the top issues we’re hearing from the forums and community leaders, and hope that this list truly makes Madden NFL 09 the ultimate sports game for you. Kicking play disconnect: If two opponents play a game with two different camera angles, in any situation where a game winning or tying kick was to be made, a disconnect could occur. “ActionCam” forces the game to go into slow-motion to add drama to these late kicks, but unfortunately the Classic camera does not, thus forcing the “disconnect”. This has been fixed…and FYI all cameras will still be able to be used after the patch. Workaround until the patch: If possible, ensure that you and your opponent have the same camera type chosen before starting an online game. Stability issues in the play call / halftime highlights / postgame highlights screens (especially in Franchise mode after training games): This was a hard one to track down as not everyone was seeing it , we did find the issue however with some Instant Replay / cache corruption, and have a fix ready for patch 2. Workaround until the patch: Save and re-boot after any point where you have entered the game. We learned that the likelihood of this issue appearing is magnified after multiple loads into and out of the game engine. From what we’ve seen so far, people that have tried playing only one game at a time (or even one Franchise training session at a time), and saving/rebooting afterwards, have had zero crashes. Stability issues with Madden IQ end of game popup: This has been fixed. Workaround until the patch: Always choose “No” at the Madden IQ end of game popup. “WR direct snap” exploit: Cheesers found an exploit to direct snap to a WR for easy short yardage gain. Not only are we fixing this play (i.e. we aren’t removing it), we are also going to be re-setting records for anyone with a winning record that has been found to be using this play. Franchise Progression / Regression (or lack thereof): The lack of higher numbers was a tuning value that I think everyone agreed was just too low. This has been juiced up so you should see more realistic progression now. Edited players don’t progress: Players were not progressing after their jersey number (or pretty much any other attribute) was edited. This has been fixed. Stability issue when exiting Madden ’93 in CE version: This has been fixed. Deep ball glitch: Some enterprising gamers found a way to throw a deep ball while crossing the LOS and hit a receiver wide open at a decent rate. We addressed this by making sure the DB will no longer break on the ball when the QB crosses the line while throwing. CPU running out of bounds: This bug appears when the CPU tries to switch hands while running to the sidelines. This is fixed for patch 2. Penalty sliders ineffective: A common complaint from the hardcore community was the lack of effect from the penalty sliders. We increased these substantially for patch 2. Field degradation: Another common complaint was the lack of field degradation. Our effect was very subtle, which was also getting overshadowed by our lighting and post effects, so we increased this effect for the patch. Stability issue with the Eagles and a full ring meter: We found and fixed a rare issue where the gamer could run into stability issues while using the Eagles in mini-games with a ring meter that was completely full. Play call screen hitch: We found and fixed a bug that was causing a noticeable hitch when exiting the play call screen Prevent Defense issue: We found and fixed an issue where defenders sharing a deep zone/prevent assignment would loosen their coverage (because they thought the other guy was covering for them), which allowed the receiver to get behind them even though they were in Prevent. Brett Favre stats: With the late addition of Brett Favre, we were not able to get his Career and Season statistics into the game for the roster update. This has now been added for patch 2. Defensive Preplay Mis-cue: We found and fixed an issue where defenders would leave their man wide open in a Cover 3. CPU quick-snap: A very common complaint on the forums was the speed at which the CPU snapped the ball. We added a random length of time (no less than 5 seconds) for the CPU to wait and even make pre-play adjustments. Online playbook switch: We fixed a small annoying little issue where playbooks were re-setting to the defaults after the playbook select popup was closed. I hope this makes everyone quite happy. :-) The patch is being tested as I write this and will be sent off for verification in the morning, so we are targeting less than a 3 week turnaround from today for this to hit the general public. (Woohoo!) We will also make sure to provide updates as the patch progresses through the 3rd party approval process. As a side note, as of this moment there have been no changes to database schema, so you won’t have to re-start your Franchise or delete any files. It makes us very stoked to be able to make this many changes for a patch, and do them based directly on community feedback. There are always going to be folks that are upset if what they felt was a top issue wasn’t addressed, but I’ll state again (as I have before) that we have to keep balancing this work against Madden NFL 2010. The longer we keep going on patches, the less we can add to the following year’s product. On a side note, there is also a Franchise stability issue that we have been investigating, and we are working feverishly to get this figured out. We will update on that issue as soon as we can. As for the items above, I personally feel that we have hit a very good balance of top items because many of these issues can actually detract from an enjoyable experience, which is obviously the last thing we want. And now that this patch is nearly out the door, I figured I’d drop some more good news… We have officially started building the TOTALLY FREE “Sim Madden Gamer” DLC pack, which includes Accelerated Clock, a “Classic” Controller Configuration, CPU Sliders, and Community Gamerpics for 360. I’ll state again that there’s no promise that this goes through, but we have nearly every one of these features actually ‘done’ internally, so now we have to figure out how to get Microsoft and Sony to allow us to release them. Thanks everyone – keep the feedback coming, and let's keep this train a-rollin'! Ian Cummings Senior Designer, Madden NFL 2010

So you mean that you guys have not yet started any work on 2010 yet? Really?

[JayBee74]

Quote: Originally Posted by labguy

Thanks for the update Ian. The list of fixes was quite extensive. I'll save the rant about QA work and why there were so many issues to begin with for another time. I don't feel the need to be a killjoy at every opportunity. I would like to ask about the CPU AI in regards to clock management. I did not see this addressed in the patch. So I accept the fact that we will just have to live with it for 09. Can you please make sure it is addressed for 10 though? I have only played 1/2 a season on Franchise mode thus far and the CPU has done some ignorant things like every other game. Here are a few examples: 1) CPU punted on 3rd down once (no logical reason for this) 2) CPU refuses to throw into endzone at end of half or game 3) CPU called timeout at end of half which allowed me chance to kick FG. I was out of TO's myself and got tackled in bounds. 4) CPU runs ball under 2 mins left and losing. I just hope this is something that will be addressed to make the game more enjoyable. Kind of takes the exceitment out of a close game if you know CPU isn't going to be agressive in trying to win at the end.

Doesn't seem to go for it on 4th and inches even inside the 20.

[thehitokiri]

does this mean i have to restart my franchise for the patch to work ?? like the progression thing?? i edited some numbers and added visors to some of my players.

[Pared]

Quote: Originally Posted by Moegames

that video is pushing that fine line as being an obvious bug finding hunt and being a valid argument. With that said, i highly doubt passes would be thrown like that if the gamer is playing correctly and by how nfl football is "really" played...my point is, no real need to fix something like that unless the CPU was running around tossing passes like that at willl..thats a user passing the rock.. i can go into any videogame and record something stupid looking just because im trying to make the game look dumb by purposly doing certain things to make it look like it has weak AI Logic.

I highly disagree. You can account for stuff like this by placing specific limitations on the QB's throw in that situation. That's the big complaint with EA football and momentum... or lack there of. Players don't seem to have "weight."

In no way should the ball rocket out of the QB's arm like that given the situation. He's spinning around doing a 360 and he throws a perfect strike? C'mon.

[stux]

Thanks for the heads up. Is is great to see you guys are fixing more then just the ingame freezing and roster updates, thanks for listening to us. I really hope that the franchise freezing issues is addressed soon rather then later. I think to a lot of poeple that would take priority over the DLC. It does to me. That is not to say that I am not really exited about the DLC, GO CPU SLIDERS!, but that if I had to choose between a playable franchise and the DLP I would pick the franchise in a heart beat.

I want to say it is also great that you guys are fixing these things now rather then have them as an incentive to buy 2010. Thanks for answering my question on the DLC btw.

One last thing, do the sliders effect supsim? When I supersim the defense I am unstoppable. I do not think it was intended to work that. I think in about 10 games using the supersim the CPU avg. about 4 points a game.