Madden NFL 10 Q&A Blog with the Dev Team

[65South]

Hi Ian, thanks for taking the time to do this and your team's continued involvement. It's not a requirement, but you guys are making attempts to reach out and appease the community with these threads and the dev chats. I know this can't be easy....

I hope to be short and simple. I can only speak on what I've experienced and for the most part that's been online franchise.

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In your original OF Q&A you stated that the main reason the team went server based was so you could add more features and do extra tweaks and tuning based on community feedback even after the game ships.

Q: How does/will the team determine what updates will be implemented? There has been tons of feedback but we haven't heard ANYTHING on you guys' end, Should we continue to hope for updates to the system and website or is online franchise set for Madden 10?

Q: There are a TON of questions in this thing...What constitutes a fixable or patchable issue, both offline or online? What determines priority?

Q: Are online updates correlated with patches or will online updates continue after a second patch? (assuming there will be two)

Q: What happened to the stadium sounds (and chants)? I miss hearing the cannons in Tampa Bay, lol.

Q: What happened to team/player specific celebrations? No Lambeau Leap?

Q: Are there any plans to address, or discuss, the blocking logic (or lack thereof) of offensive lineman?

Q: Is practice mode a possibility in online franchise? We get new players via draft and FA, but never have a chance to practice with them before diving into a game...SUCKS when you get a new QB.

Q: Have you guys taken a look at the Online Franchise Issues Thread? No need to cringe, thanks to bgdave everything is all one thread clean and neat.

Thanks for your time Ian (and team).

[Dbrentonbuck]

Quote: Originally Posted by Dbrentonbuck

Two questions I have that I do not believe have been addressed here are 1. What is wrong with the pass rush that causes it to be easier to get sacks with the strong side DE than with the weak side DE which should be getting all the sacks? Something is broken in the logic there. To test this, play with the Falcons who have a 94 rated weak side pass rushing DE who destroys OTs in real life for a whole game against a bad O-line and see how many sacks you get and then play with the scrub who should be selling beer in the stands 70 rated no talent strong side DE against the same O-line and see how many more sacks you can get even though you have to beat the TE or HB in addition to the RT on most plays. Something is messed up either in the pass protection logic or the pass rush logic. It should be easier to get sacks with the weak side DE. 2. Is there a way to fix imported draft classes from NCAA 10 to make their ratings translate some what logically? If a guy is 97 in speed in NCAA and is imported into Madden, his speed should never take a 10 point drop. If a guy has a 98 twp in NCAA and is imported to Madden he shouldn't have a 10-15 point drop in throw power. I thought I read before this game came out that this issue was being fixed.

I have one more question to add to my list if you are still reading this thread.

3. Is there anyway to make Matt Ryan look a little more like the real Matt Ryan? The model looks horrible in this game. At the very least if you could lighten the hair and add some eye black that would at least help somewhat. It kind of takes you out of the experience when durring cut scenes you see some guy that looks nothing like him. I know it is a small thing, but it is adds to the immersion.

[WdnUlik2no]

Quote: Originally Posted by hee163

Is it getting the matchups right though? Conference standings are usually shown by record and not in seeding order. See last season's AFC standings on NFL.com The colts are listed 3rd as they have the 3rd best record, despite taking the 5th seed as a wildcard team. http://www.nfl.com/standings?categor...&split=Overall I personally prefer the system they've been talking about the last few seasons where the 3 to 6 seeds are sorted on record regardless of division wins. No way the Chargers deserve a home playoff game for an 8-8 season.

no the divisional playoffs (2nd round) match ups are wrong which is my point.

When the playoffs start, regular season records are no longer relevant. The only thing that matters is the playoff seeding.

So in my scenario, with the #5 Ravens and #3 Chargers winning their wildcard games, the #5 Ravens should be playing the #1 Patriots in the Divisional round because they are the LOWEST remaining seed. However Madden puts them against the #2 Steelers in the Divisional round just because they have a better record than the #3 Chargers.

For the Divisional round, Madden has:

#5 Ravens (11 - 5) vs #2 Steelers (12 - 4) (This is WRONG because the Ravens are the Lowest remaining seed from the wildcard and should be playing the #1 Patriots)

#3 Chargers (10 - 5) vs. #1 Patriots (13 - 3) (This is WRONG because the Chargers are the Highest remaining seed from the wildcard round and should be playing the #2 Steelers)

The NFL does not do this, they only go by playoff seeding. so the divisional playoff matchups (2nd round) should have been:

#5 Ravens (11 - 5) vs #1 Patriots (13 - 3) (LOWEST seeded wildcard winner vs. #1 seed)

#3 Chargers (10 - 5) vs. #2 Steelers (12 - 4) (HIGHEST seeded wildcard winner vs. #2 seed)





Look at the 2005 - 2006 NFL playoffs as this scenario happened in real life with the Steelers and Patriots. The Steelers ended up with a better record than the Patriots but because they didn't win their division, they were seeded as a wild card at #6.

http://www.nfl.com/scores/2005/POST18

In the wildcard round, the #6 Steelers (11 - 5) beat the #3 Bengals and the #4 Patriots (10 - 6) beat the #5 Jaguars

The divisional matchups were:

#6 Steelers (11 - 5) at #1 Colts (14 - 2)
#4 Patriots (10 - 6) at #2 Broncos (13 - 3)

However when I simmed the season and wildcard round in Madden 2006
Madden came up with the following matchups which are wrong:

#6 Steelers at #2 Broncos (This was WRONG because the Steelers were the Lowest remaining seed from the wildcard and actually played the #1 Colts)

#4 Patriots at #1 Colts (This was WRONG because the Patriots were the Highest remaining seed from the wildcard and actually played the #2 Broncos)

This has been an issue in Madden since 2003 and is still broken in Madden 10


Anyway they said no discussion in this thread, so lets start a new thread to discuss this, or just look at this one:

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...hise-mode.html

[Mossfan8480]

I am four games into the second year of my franchise and my team has not suffered an injury lasting more than one quarter. I have played the last four games with the injury slider at 58 and also at 60, but I still have yet to suffer any kind of injury that was longer than a play or a drive.

All the other teams in the franchise are racking up injuries by the second, and here I am feeling guilty that my team has been injury free for over 25 games (pre-season and playoffs included). What's the problem with human injuries in franchise mode?

[SA1NT401]

Quote: Originally Posted by Mossfan8480

I am four games into the second year of my franchise and my team has not suffered an injury lasting more than one quarter. I have played the last four games with the injury slider at 58 and also at 60, but I still have yet to suffer any kind of injury that was longer than a play or a drive. All the other teams in the franchise are racking up injuries by the second, and here I am feeling guilty that my team has been injury free for over 25 games (pre-season and playoffs included). What's the problem with human injuries in franchise mode?

Its completely random.....VERY VERY random. I have 3 injuries. 2 were from simming a week by accident, i won and just say whatever. But i am now in week 12 and have 3 total injuries. ONLY 1 was in game. Fred Taylor went out for the year with a broken leg. Even with injury slider at 100 no real big injuries.

then you look at the CPU...The Bucs have 13 players injured...5 out for the year. I do feel guilty.....Injuries are part of the game....but i guess not "THIS' game.

[jvaccaro]

does an additional player not add to the pro-tak pile if I'm holding sprint? I constantly bounce off the pile when I try to run into it with safety or linebacker.

Also, can you not hitstick a pile? I ALWAYS whiff everytime I try.

[redsox-rick]

Has the import draft class option been disabled/removed from the European version of the game?

If so could it be addressed with a patch because that seems like quite an issue considering PS3 games are region free and so despite NCAA football not being released in Europe, European gamers can buy and play the game still.

[Mr. White]

Here's something you can add to next year, Ian, because it sure as hell won't make it in a patch of Madden 10.

The A.I. is an absolute joke, and a bad one at that. I can't get a competitive game. 60-14 blow outs, routinely, on All-Madden-like sliders (custom built to provide even more of a challenge).

Now, I'm not some Madden Jesus Christ, but I do like to think of myself as damn good - I'm a thinking man's gamer with stick skills. I completely slaughter opposing A.I. on offense - very rarely do I punt - and on defense, the CPU scores on me even less. I'd like, even if it was limited to teams with superior coaching, to have a mental challenge on the football field.

I'm not a developer. I can't pinpoint out what exactly is "wrong" or needs fixing with the A.I. I can just tell you that when I'm blowing teams out (EVERY team....I have 300 more points scored than any other team in the NFL....in Week 10) on a consistent basis, the game quickly becomes boring.

I want to be ABLE to lose the Super Bowl in a heart breaker. I'm not saying I'm gunning for it - I'd much rather win, but that possibility has gotta be there.

Game is good. Lotta fun. Basic mechanics seem solid. But it's just so damn easy, man. The challenge is everything. Make me work to win a game again.

Maybe what you have to do is fundamentally re-work the artificial intelligence - I'm unsure how all the systems are interrelated - maybe not. Either way, provide me a challenge.