Madden NFL 16 Features All-New Controls to Dominate Air Supremacy

[Senator Palmer]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

Great point. I'd argue that 60-70% (this number may be too low) of the people who visit this forum buy Madden each year because they need a football fix and love the NFL. Casual fans need big ticket features to entice them to buy the game each year. Something on the back of the box or in a commercial that makes them want the game.

You might be right and I may be lacking the big picture on this point, but what was the big ticket item for say NBA 2K this year? And if there was one how come it's never stopped them from improving the sim aspects and fundamentals of the game every year?

As far as enticing people to buy? EA has the benefit of being affiliated with the biggest sports cash cow in the United State. The NFL is a goldmine. The game literally sells itself at this point. My mother knows what Madden is and she's near retirement age and hasn't picked up a controller since Duck Hunt on Nintendo.

[BezO]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

Damn near every sports game is a sim/arcade hybrid. EVERY GAME. From the Show to NBA2k to Madden. Out of the box NBA2k is a arcadey dunkfest with poor rebounding logic and hardly any fouls called. Once I tweak it with sliders and coach settings, I get it to play a realistic game of Basketball. Same goes with the Show. The difference is some steer closer to a true simulation and others steer closer to an arcade game...

Agreed, but of all the major sports, Madden is the furthest from sim. And the gap grows every year. The animations & AI available in those other games allows for realistic play. No sliders or settings can make Madden anywhere near as realistic.

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

...Its disingenuous to act as if EA hasnt taken steps the last few years to make the game more sim. All of these features were added in the last version of Madden: - Improved OL/DL interaction - Improved man/zone logic - Increased pass inaccuracy - Playcalling improvements. Now were all of those things implemented successfully...no. But the fact that the attempt was made shows that EA has an interest in bringing the game closer to a sim game...

IMO, there's good reason why those features weren't implemented successfully. Same reason why nothing seems to be implemented successfully. The root causes of the problems they're attempting to address are ignored.

How were linemen going to interact realistically without d-linemen having gap/rush assignments/AI? The engage, disengage, chase ball AI can't delivery realistic interaction.

How was coverage going to improve without realistic footwork & interaction animations? What exactly did they do?

How was accuracy going to improve with the ball still tethered to WRs? Without realistic footwork from WRs? Without pressure effecting accuracy? Without coverage effecting accuracy. Again, what did they do here? I haven't seen anything different regarding QB accuracy.

IMO, not much will be right with madden until they fix the foundation of the game. Until the animations, footwork & AI are addressed in a football way, the spacing, timing, look & feel of this game will be off. To a serious sports gamer (most gamers I would assume), the improvements are not noticable because their effects are limited by the lack of attention to the root causes of these problems.

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by aholbert32

Question: Its messed up but why should EA market to OS gamers? Most of us will buy the game no matter what changes are made. Even when the game was skewing more towards arcade, plenty of people here still bought the game each year. There is a small contingent of guys who will never buy Madden no matter what because they preferred other games, think madden needs a complete rebuild or are upset about the exclusive license. Its useless to market to those guys. Finally there is a small contingent of people who would buy the game if it EA added a few sim like features to the game. But is that contingent big enough to justify the manpower and marketing costs to add those features?

In theory, like I said earlier in the thread, word-of-mouth marketing. Those who care the most about the game are most likely to talk about it and get more eyes on it.

In practice? Not sure, for the points you mentioned. To be fair, however, when was the last time Tiburon marketed to Operation Sports directly? Their Twitch streams last year brought in the OS audience, yes, but those also brought in anyone who follows @EASportsMaddenNFL on Twitter, where they promoted the streams. I assume the group of people who are followers of Madden on Twitter is a broad cross-section of people who like various aspects of the game. In contrast, other than Rex Dickson popping up for a post or two every now and then I haven't seen continued direct interaction between Tiburon and OS on OS in years.

[Armor and Sword]

The game has not even been leaked with a screen shot, nor a second of video and it's

DOA

Here on OS.

LOL!!!!

Madden 15 for me has been a blast......look forward to hopefully some meaningful improvement upon that game in 16. If not I will keep playing 15.

[SageInfinite]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

The game has not even been leaked with a screen shot, nor a second of video and it's DOA Here on OS. LOL!!!! Madden 15 for me has been a blast......look forward to hopefully some meaningful improvement upon that game in 16. If not I will keep playing 15.

It just comes a point when people stop kidding themselves about the product Tiburon will be shipping in August. When it comes to Madden, if dope was hope, we'd all be high.....

[aholbert32]

Quote: Originally Posted by SageInfinite

It just comes a point when people stop kidding themselves about the product Tiburon will be shipping in August. When it comes to Madden, if dope was hope, we'd all be high.....

I dont know if thats the case with me. If Madden 16 is the same as Madden 15 except with WR/DB interaction and penalties that work, I would be happy. The game wouldnt be at the level of some of the alltime greatest football games but it would be solid enough to get me through football season.

[aholbert32]

Quote: Originally Posted by Senator Palmer

You might be right and I may be lacking the big picture on this point, but what was the big ticket item for say NBA 2K this year? And if there was one how come it's never stopped them from improving the sim aspects and fundamentals of the game every year? As far as enticing people to buy? EA has the benefit of being affiliated with the biggest sports cash cow in the United State. The NFL is a goldmine. The game literally sells itself at this point. My mother knows what Madden is and she's near retirement age and hasn't picked up a controller since Duck Hunt on Nintendo.

The big ticket item for NBA 2k was the new My Career mode story, My Park and My League (for the sim heads). Dont get me wrong. I would be ecstatic if EA removed that abomination they call CFM and gave us a franchise similar to My League. I love that NBA2k is more willing to throw sim fans a bone. Also, the fundamentals of a football game are more difficult to simulate than a basketball game imo.

I'm not going to sell EA short. The NFL is a gold mine but EA has done an incredible job of turning Madden into a juggernaut. The NFL license alone doesnt equal sales. NFL Fever and Gameday were gone before the exclusive deal because of low sales. 2k had to drop the price of their game to get people to give their game a try.

Madden has always been a very easy pick and play type football game when compared to other games. Maybe thats part of the reason its always been the #1 selling football game. That and the job EA has done building the Madden brand. So EA's approach is why rock the boat? Sales before and after the exclusive license have shown that people are willing to purchase Madden even at its most arcadey. So why would a corporation with stockholders to answer to take a risk like making the game a "total sim" and risk alienating current Madden fans and casual fans?

[HealyMonster]

Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_OS

GameStop has revealed a quick feature on their Madden NFL 16 page. There isn't much to go off of here, but it's fun to speculate what it could be for the game. It obviously has something to do with WR/DB interaction, but it will be interesting to see how they implement it. Guess we will find out something more official in May, when the first news, features and details arrive, but until then, what are your thoughts? Madden NFL 16 is scheduled to release on August 25th. Source - GameStop, thanks PastaPadre!

My body is ready