What Should Happen in Madden's Passing Game

[IdleRace]

I would like to see receivers do more in their routes as well. I would like to see some jukes or shakes to try to throw off the defender and get open. The playbooks have felt the same for the last 10 years. I would like them to get deeper as well and add more.

[IdleRace]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Foremost, let me be clear and say I'm firmly in the "sim" bucket of players and would be cool with seeing all these changes. That said, let me present a counterpoint: You are a professional Madden player (yes, they exist; I was surprised to learn this too). You are playing in the finals of the Madden Challenge with your Ultimate Team against some other highly-ranked Madden player. You have 4th and goal on your opponent's goal line with four seconds left, needing a touchdown to win the game. You call a draw play out of a shotgun spread formation (for whatever reason, the play call isn't the important part here). When you go to snap the ball, the center sails the ball over your QB's head. Your QB recovers the ball, but is promptly tackled. Your opponent wins the Madden Challenge and the $25,000 prize, the game ultimately decided on essentially a dice roll. This is the sort of play tournament players absolutely to not want in the game. Could it happen in real football? Absolutely. In a competitive video gaming environment where user skill is the preferred arbiter of success? This sort of randomness is absolutely detrimental to that experience. Heck, the tourney guys don't even really like wide-open incomplete passes; their feeling is that, as long as they make the right read, if the guy is open, they should complete the pass. From their perspective where user skill should trump all, is their opinion wrong? I don't think so. I also don't think it's proper to just tell these players to "deal with it", given that they are just as large and vital a part of Madden's audience as the sim players are. We're not more important than them, and they aren't more important than us.

I was the #1 Madden player in the world in 2005. I stopped playing online after that as I am a offline franchise guy from my Tecmo super bowl days.

MuT makes allot of money for EA and is a cool mode. I have nothing against it. I have played MuT the last few years for a month or two but just to build a team and play against my bro not online man child's who spam the mic.

As for the hiked ball over the QB's head it happens its football. It's no different then a WR dropping a pass for a TD or a player fumbling the ball. If you don't want random stuff like this happening go play another game. Go play CSGO. You don't have to worry about random crap in fps games. Your guns not going to lock on you so you can't shoot.

This is the only football game everyone has. You don't cater a game to the biggest cry baby's that play it which would be online players.

[whitey7886]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Foremost, let me be clear and say I'm firmly in the "sim" bucket of players and would be cool with seeing all these changes. That said, let me present a counterpoint: You are a professional Madden player (yes, they exist; I was surprised to learn this too). You are playing in the finals of the Madden Challenge with your Ultimate Team against some other highly-ranked Madden player. You have 4th and goal on your opponent's goal line with four seconds left, needing a touchdown to win the game. You call a draw play out of a shotgun spread formation (for whatever reason, the play call isn't the important part here). When you go to snap the ball, the center sails the ball over your QB's head. Your QB recovers the ball, but is promptly tackled. Your opponent wins the Madden Challenge and the $25,000 prize, the game ultimately decided on essentially a dice roll. This is the sort of play tournament players absolutely to not want in the game. Could it happen in real football? Absolutely. In a competitive video gaming environment where user skill is the preferred arbiter of success? This sort of randomness is absolutely detrimental to that experience. Heck, the tourney guys don't even really like wide-open incomplete passes; their feeling is that, as long as they make the right read, if the guy is open, they should complete the pass. From their perspective where user skill should trump all, is their opinion wrong? I don't think so. I also don't think it's proper to just tell these players to "deal with it", given that they are just as large and vital a part of Madden's audience as the sim players are. We're not more important than them, and they aren't more important than us.

You are correct in the online challenge play that they probably wouldnt watn that. I would counter as say they could put in a, lets call it real life button that would allow you to either have the snap problem or not have them.

[roadman]

Quote: Originally Posted by IdleRace

I was the #1 Madden player in the world in 2005. I stopped playing online after that as I am a offline franchise guy from my Tecmo super bowl days. MuT makes allot of money for EA and is a cool mode. I have nothing against it. I have played MuT the last few years for a month or two but just to build a team and play against my bro not online man child's who spam the mic. As for the hiked ball over the QB's head it happens its football. It's no different then a WR dropping a pass for a TD or a player fumbling the ball. If you don't want random stuff like this happening go play another game. Go play CSGO. You don't have to worry about random crap in fps games. Your guns not going to lock on you so you can't shoot. This is the only football game everyone has. You don't cater a game to the biggest cry baby's that play it which would be online players.

I don't think you would be saying that if it was you that lost the 25 grand on a dice roll on the last play of the game. Tourney players want nothing of that.

And this is absolutely the reason why there are no bad snaps in Madden.

[redsox4evur]

Quote: Originally Posted by IdleRace

I was the #1 Madden player in the world in 2005. I stopped playing online after that as I am a offline franchise guy from my Tecmo super bowl days. MuT makes allot of money for EA and is a cool mode. I have nothing against it. I have played MuT the last few years for a month or two but just to build a team and play against my bro not online man child's who spam the mic. As for the hiked ball over the QB's head it happens its football. It's no different then a WR dropping a pass for a TD or a player fumbling the ball. If you don't want random stuff like this happening go play another game. Go play CSGO. You don't have to worry about random crap in fps games. Your guns not going to lock on you so you can't shoot. This is the only football game everyone has. You don't cater a game to the biggest cry baby's that play it which would be online players.

I'm playing you in a tourney, with a 50K prize to the winner and 5K to the 2nd place guy. You are down by 1 with :02 on the clock with the ball at the 10. Easy FG range, you get a botched snap and I tackle the holder, game over. You just lost 45K because of a dice roll, how do you feel?

[franko3219]

How much money does EA make off of tourney players, or people who make a living off of Madden vs. the rest of the playing populace? I do not know the answer, but my guess is that just the fact that there is only a small % of tourney players compared to Madden's overall customer base, means that the vast majority of their revenue comes from non career Madden Players. If that is indeed the case, what kind of business model is it that dictates that you cater to the lower % of your revenue stream? You are never going to make 100% of people happy, because you have people that play the game, that have either never played a down of real football or played anything above high school. There is nothing wrong with that, but all the understanding of football there is the basics. Higher level football is so much more than that. There is no chess match playing Madden, whether it's user vs. user or user vs. CPU. In user vs. user games, the user can run the same four plays all game long and your players never adjust. In user vs. user games, a lot of ratings do not matter. You can have an 85 ovr DE abusing a 99 ovr tackle; that does not make sense. I'm not saying that the DE would never win those battles, but in Madden, that DE gets by the o-lineman every time. In user vs. cpu games, you can gash the defense up the middle for an entire half, then the second you call an outside run....bam, the cpu is there waiting for you. You can get to the goal line, come out in a three receiver set to run the ball and...bam...somehow the defense is in a goal line defense; however, if you were to have called a pass, the defense would not be in goal line. User complain and wonder why everyone runs the same plays all of the time, well that's because they don't have to run anything else. You're playing a user game and they are hitting slants and underneath routes over the middle, so you adjust your defense accordingly, nothing happens. The receiver is still wide open. I do understand that you as a user, are not going to shut down your opponent every play. I wouldn't want that, that's when it gets repetitive and boring, but there should be no way that someone can run the same four to six plays all game and be successful.

[ChaseB]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

Nailed it. This is the fundamental issue Tiburon faces every year with respect to tuning Madden. They have to strike a balance between the desires of competitive skills-based online community to have their stick skills, play calls, and blitz set-ups as the sole determining factor in games' outcomes and the sim community's desire for complete and unapologizing authenticity to the game's source material.

As someone who plays online almost exclusively, I welcome randomness into my heart.

[Junior Moe]

I'll quote a post I made about Madden passing 5 years ago.

"An idea to make Awareness matter in Madden considering EA already uses this to a certain extent (just give us the OPTION to turn it off). In Madden playing as a rookie or a seasoned veteran plays the same for the user. There is no penalty for the user playing with a rookie. I think that a good (and fairly simple) way for EA to somewhat mimic the struggles of playing with a rookie in Madden would be to have the "?" marks that pop up in place of your receiver icon in NCAA when your QB is rattled; do the same in Madden if the player you are controlling has low awareness and is under pressure. So if your playing with a rook and you have a great offensive line and never get touched everything plays out the way it does in Madden now. The QB is only limited by his physical ability. But if (or as) the pocket breaks down the kid should get “rattled”.

Outside of the 2 primary receivers and the HB I wouldn’t mind having the 3rd, 4th, and 5th options (check-downs) have the “?” mark above there heads. And depending on the AWR of the QB (say low 60s) have the accuracy slightly affected as well. So if you really know your team you can still run an effective offense but have to take the necessary precautions a real coach probably would with an inexperienced QB to minimize turnovers. It would also add value to Franchise mode. Maybe they could have it so that the biggest AWR jump for QBs happen during their 3rd season. So now if your Franchise QB is out there as a rookie behind a crappy line he’s (you) are more likely to make those “rookie mistakes”. Maybe once the AWR is above 80 all of the receiver icons stay onscreen, regardless of the pressure but the QB can be “rattled” in big games (Rivalry, Playoffs, Super Bowl). And 90 is reserved for the clutch big game Qbs (Manning, Brees, Brady). This would actually make addressing the Offensive Line mean something to have any hope of having a successful season, just like the NFL. Thoughts…"

Granted that was mainly about the affect AWR would have on the passing game. But I truly believe that something innovative, and yes, even random and restrictive needs to be added to the passing game to make it more complex. As with all things, it should be optional. But I want to literally have to change my entire play style and game plan if an elite QB like Brady goes down.