Madden NFL 11 Hints From EA (IGN)

[Jump]

Quote: Originally Posted by CreatineKasey

I like the idea of more contrived counters for sure. I know football is random and not black and white, but anyone who has spent a fair amount of time online knows that players can bank on a handful of tactics to work for an entire game. There isn't much "mixing in" of plays. Personally I like to think I'm the opposite of that type of gamer. I'm one who tries not to call the same plays more than twice. It has obvious advantages. The first advantage being that the user controlled pass defender legitimately has no idea what's coming and is therefore stripped of his inherent advantage to CPU players: he doesn't know what's coming either. That being said, it gets very frustrating see the PA flats work consistently against blitzes when the user isn't setting up those plays with run calls. In reality, defenders should be obliterating the QB if he's trying to pull off playaction without actually running the ball. On defense, many people find 1 or 2 blitzes that get through consistently and call it a day. One trick ponies are just everywhere in ranked matches. These guys bank on someone now knowing a basic counter to their strategy. Where I think things get really sad is when you see guys who play this game for money. They play just like the ranked lobby kids: 1 base play and audibling/hot routing from it. What does this tell us: It's really the best way to play if your main goal is to win at all costs. That's not good. That needs to change. There's clear logical reasons why teams don't come out in the same play every play. That logic needs to be reflected in Madden in some way. To be completely blunt, Madden becomes a pretty terrible experience once the chess match is stripped from it. That's what some of the top players do. Madden needs to learn from real time strategy games. Promoting smart decisions, unpredictability, and an overall engaging chess match is the reason football is successful in real life, and is exactly where Madden needs to go to compete with FPS in the competitive game arena. I'd like to see mechanisms within the game that force varied playcalling. Something as simple as that would add so much to the game. Nothing kills Madden (or any video game nonetheless) more than people "gaming the game". It sucks the life out of everything you intend to do in a game. It becomes a moral battle. It's you playing a guy willing to mess with the AI for an advantage while you won't. I'd rather have the moral battle be gone. Interestingly, Tecmo Super Bowl's simple concept of "guessing plays" eliminates money plays and repetitive playcalling right then and there. Tecmo does more with it's 8 plays than many Madden games do with their 300. There's a lesson to be learned there, guys. Rant over. I'd love to hear opinions on this.

Nice post.

On the counters, I wouldn't want a blunt system where each offensive play has a partner defensive play that stops it every time.

First they've gotta get the basics down, like flat zones covering the flats, hook zone defenders reacting to receivers moving into their zone,etc. They've just gotta make basic football logic translate to Madden.

Things like - when you bring a safety up in to the box, he shouldn't be able to read pass, turn around, and get back to knock down a pass to a streaking WR. Stuff like that really hurts the chess game.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by hatisback

No offense, as I agree with your post.....but some of the things that were supposed to be in last year wasn't so how are we supposed to label these things when they get released as credible?

No offense taken as that has been gone over many times in this forum. Ian explained that some of the blogs that were written for whatever reason didn't make the final cut.

I don't think they purposely lied in their blogs, but again, if people want to believe that, your choice.

It's up to you and everyone else what you want believe from here on out until the game comes out.

I'll just take it piece by piece until the game comes out.

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jump

On the counters, I wouldn't want a blunt system where each offensive play has a partner defensive play that stops it every time. First they've gotta get the basics down, like flat zones covering the flats, hook zone defenders reacting to receivers moving into their zone,etc. They've just gotta make basic football logic translate to Madden.

Exactly.

I would really really hate a hard counter system in a sports game.

[Joeyland]

Its not about loving on 2K, its about benchmarks, APF2K8 was undeniably the best push at duplicating real football, this is an OLD benchmark, its time for someone, (since ea and the NFL decided only they should b the one) to step up.
Imagine if baseball was in the same shape as football for gamers. You wanna still be stuck in the Summer of 07 with your baseballs games development?
How was MLB the show in 08 compared to now?

[KBLover]

Quote: Originally Posted by Joeyland

You wanna still be stuck in the Summer of 07 with your baseballs games development? How was MLB the show in 08 compared to now?

Don't know about 08, but 06 was solid, imo, and RTTS hasn't actually changed all that much between 06 and 09. CL still suck to play as and you still can't be a mid-/setup reliever and knuckleballs are still like OMGLOLWhatWasThat?

'07 was...OOTP7 (or 8, one of those) - pretty solid as well. I still play OOTP6 which was 2004 I believe. Shoot, I play Baseball Pro '98 still. Got a Win98 emulation program, just so I can keep playing it.

So - if baseball was still in '07 - I'd be fine.

Heck, I was playing MVP 05 with the 07 Mod...and MVP is a couple years older than The Show.

[edwolf]

This nonsense is why i hope the NFL lockout happens so that they can tear up this stupid EA-NFL contract. Say what you want but 2k is for real sim players while Madden only cares about people who don't know anything about the real game of football.

[Boregard]

You know why everyone uses the Hitstsick for every tackle??? Because there is no button tackle that gives you a better chance at making a tackle. I just played an two entire games trying to just use the run into the guy or dive button only and I swear I missed more tackles than if I were to hitstick all game long. And I mean situations were I had the ball carrier squared up and was in perfect position to make a tackle = just stupid!!!

The idea should be that if you are "playing it safe" you should have a better success rate when making tackles - but in M10 that does not play out!!!

This is something that really annoys me about EA - there is no sense when playing M10 of risk vs reward in your play calls or decision making during the game play!!!

[Cryolemon]

Quote: Originally Posted by edwolf

This nonsense is why i hope the NFL lockout happens so that they can tear up this stupid EA-NFL contract. Say what you want but 2k is for real sim players while Madden only cares about people who don't know anything about the real game of football.

Why will a lockout "tear up this stupid EA-NFL contract."? I don't see why that would happen at all. Madden would still get made, hell there might even still be NFL games if the owners want to get replacement players.