Madden NFL 11: Madden is Watching (ESPN)

[Steve_OS]

You wouldn't believe how many interceptions Brett Favre threw online last season, and EA is counting every single one as they track online user data to help shape the direction of Madden NFL 11.

Quote:

"The average length of a "Madden NFL 10" game is 63 minutes, but only 17 minutes of this time is spent actually playing the game. The other 46 minutes are spent on things like calling plays, setting up audibles, making substitutions, and watching replays. Another crazy stat thrown out at the event is the fact that while most team playbooks offer an average of 330 plays, the average gamer only uses 13 plays per game. That is why the tag line for this year's game is "'Madden NFL 11': Simpler. Quicker. Deeper," as EA Sports is looking to not only speed up the time it takes to complete a game, but make the experience geared more toward how people are actually playing "Madden" online according to this user data they've compiled. "Our online base, our online connected rate continues to rise dramatically," explains "Madden" executive producer Jeremy Strauser. "We're able to now bring a tremendous amount of data in on real-time usage, real-time gameplay, in terms of reports from our connected user base. "We're bringing in over 173 million data reports ever single day with 'Madden,'" adds Strauser. "We're able to take this real-time data, confirm what's working, what's not working, and make changes to the game real-time while it's consumed." One example of how this quick-fix ability is a gameplay tweak from last year. When "Madden NFL 10" first shipped, EA started tracking Hit Stick tackles. While 1,135,443,163 were attempted, an astounding 518,959,818 were actually completed, for a success rate of 46-percent. Hit Stick tackles were meant to be a high risk/high reward type feature where gamers whiff and pay the price, but by making 46-percent of these tackles, the high risk part of the equation was almost nullified. So EA Sports went in and made a gameplay change through an online update about a month into the season, and the Hit Stick success rate plummeted down to the levels the game designers originally intended."

[SA1NT401]

thanks Steve....

[Palo20]

I hope they Dont dumb down the playbooks.

[qpc123]

Not sure gearing the game to the way people play online is a step in the right direction

[Facts]

Uh-ohhhhh. Look if Player A is constantly throwing picks w/ Farve because he sucks at the game, it shouldn't effect us. Please don't boost guys stats because of the lack of skills of the players.

[LucianoJJ]

Sim players who use deep playbooks suffer, while online cheesers get a boost.

[PantherBeast_OS]

Well I just hope this stuff doesn't affect the playbooks and all. They should base gameplay online on how they should fix the game itself. Alot people who play online is guys with not alot skills are just kids playing. But I don't want to see playbooks get chopped up because of this. Then it would game boring again just running the same old few plays. I am hoping soon enough Ian are Phil will clear this up in a blog in the next few weeks are so. This does worry me some. But thanks for the info Steveo

[ZoneKIller]

Ahhh.I knew it was coming to this.ONLINE is the number 1 feature for all video games.I never play online but I did with MW2.And the majority of the time I played with KIDS.I think most of the time thats all thats online.Im 29 years of age and Im a HARDCORE offline madden franchise junkie.How I wish I was still back in 2002 with madden for the PS2.