Madden Is Turning 25 This Year, Time To Take The Training Wheels Off

[Big FN Deal]

This years game will be the 25th edition of Madden and it's time the game offered the options for a more mature challenge. It's time to provide a way to disable and/or hide some of the in-game training wheels and hand holding that is currently forced on everyone. I understand that there are new younger gamers being brought into the Madden fold every year, so them having a way to transition into the game is important but grizzled Madden vets need a way to bypass all that for a greater challenge.

Clean up the field of play-

Spoiler

It's time to provide a way to at least disable ALL of the on field visual aides of this spectator sport. If Tiburon insists on allowing all these self described offensive/defensive gurus to draw plays at the LOS, at least make it more challenging without the visual aides. No pan out view play art, no pop up boxes, no nothing, just a clear view of the field of play. If gamers want to come out and preplay adjust using muscle memory, so be it, at least it will leave more room for error and encourage practice.

Real play calling-

Spoiler

No, I am not saying add an actual play call sheet to the play call menu, yet, just an option to disable the play art and only show the play name, in the play call screen, like a real play call sheet does. Coaches aren't flipping through binders full of play diagrams on the sideline before every down, they have to know the plays and what they entail by memory. Again, it would require practice and knowledge of the chosen playbook, leaving room for error, instead of picking whichever one at a whim prior to a game.

Learn pass progressions-

Spoiler

We already have the benefit of a coordinator in the booth game play view, time for a way to at least disable the visual button icons over each receiver. This goes into cleaning up the field of play too but it also places an emphasis on understanding the primary receiver on each play, what button corresponds to that receiver and what button/receiver to go to next if the primary isn't open. It again encourages practice and offers more room for error in the heat of battle.

Real scouting-

Spoiler

Real NFL teams don't have excel spreads sheets with numerical grades of every players attributes, they have to make decisions about players based on their performance. It's time for an option to hide/? ALL player ratings so gamers have to watch their players performance in games and practice for team management. If Tiburon insists on XP based progression, hiding ALL ratings means gamers will be upgrading ratings they believe each player needs to get better at, without ever actually seeing what those ratings are.

Thoughts, suggestions or other things to add?

[raiders81tim]

I'll be happy if we get proper foot planting. Hoping for Madden to ever be realistic is laughable at this point.

[raidertiger]

No play art? Not all of us has 6 hours to practice one playbook, and this is just one playbook. No visible buttons? So now as a user we have to remember many plays without playart. Exactly how long do we go into practice mode before playing a game?

Sorry but those ideas are ridiculous to me. Madden won't be sim with this. It would be tedious. I'm all for realism, but not by this. Refining the actual gameplay would be more important.

[juggalotusx]

I think he said have the option of turning off the play art so a person still could use it if they wanted.
I think the thing I hate the most is people always having to wait a year till someone figures out a good slider to use that makes the fun game and realistic. This should be done by the dev day 1, Im sick of us having to fix there game each year to make it playable for a real expericance.
As far as then not appealing to everyone I wish it would happen but I dont for see it for the future. last gen maddens were so fun but I think it was because you didnt have to remember 50 million things to play a single game. now days its tough to remember it all atleast for me a 30 year old gamer. Im not as quick as I use to be when it comes to madden,lol. Now you have a ton of attributes for each player, hot and cold streaks that go I think are garbage my FG kicker has gone 8 of 10 so far in a season but he is cold, really why. and then the traits like bracing for hits isnt this the carry attribute? why should my guy not be able to hold onto a ball if he has a 93 carry instead of brace for medium or heavy hits give me a break.
I want madden to go back to not just the gameplay basics but get rid of some of these attributes that im sure mess up the cpu AI. This game could be great if they didnt worry about every person on the planet. Im sorry but we have so many options in madden now days with mut relive the moments and every thing else its just pathetic I think.Fifa does not make it so everyone and there dog has to love it they make a game they want to play and it turns out good just like the show but with madden they I think dont want to play there own game just push it out for everyone else to play no real passion...

[Franchise408]

Quote: Originally Posted by raidertiger

No play art? Not all of us has 6 hours to practice one playbook, and this is just one playbook. No visible buttons? So now as a user we have to remember many plays without playart. Exactly how long do we go into practice mode before playing a game? Sorry but those ideas are ridiculous to me. Madden won't be sim with this. It would be tedious. I'm all for realism, but not by this. Refining the actual gameplay would be more important.

I agree with this.

I'm all about making Madden better and more realistic, but this is not the way to go about doing it.

[tfctillidie]

Except the trend of Madden has been the exact opposite. Their whole goal is to grab a wider market by making the game accessible, they certainly will not go in this direction. They are adding training wheels with "hold X button" to move your guy in the right position and follow his assignment.

Not to say I wouldn't mind these as options, but they don't seem to have interest in giving us much options either.


All your suggestions are against growing into non football gamer markets and clearly not part of EA's Madden agenda.

[Sausage]

As options to toggle on/off hey why not. Though some of the aides are needed with the playbook and receiver icons; removing that stuff doesn't add realism for me, but I can see your point of view.

[Big FN Deal]

Quote: Originally Posted by raidertiger

No play art? Not all of us has 6 hours to practice one playbook, and this is just one playbook. No visible buttons? So now as a user we have to remember many plays without playart. Exactly how long do we go into practice mode before playing a game? Sorry but those ideas are ridiculous to me. Madden won't be sim with this. It would be tedious. I'm all for realism, but not by this. Refining the actual gameplay would be more important.

LOL, I do believe I put "option" for all these things and this type of "keep it easy but realistic" attitude, is exactly why Madden is what it is, imo. Everybody wants the game more realistic, until that means making it more challenging, then it's "I don't have time to learn all this in a video game". Yet people have time to learn all manner of Madden-ball, slider sets, finding a good league, etc, but playing over time to get comfortable learning your favorite playbook and team adjustments, without all these visual aides in-game, "would be tedious".

Not to be rude but this kind of comment makes the community seem like there is no pleasing them, when someone would label ideas for OPTIONS to disable things that make the game inherently easier as "ridiculous", just because they think the options would be too difficult for them. The irony is that unless you have some impairment, I doubt using these options would even be that difficult anyway and you likely play other video games that have more challenging modes than this. For example, in that basketball video game passing icons, play art, etc, are OPTIONAL and it gives a nice clean view of the game play when watching. What I suspect, is this is yet another case of "I want Madden to change but not how I play it". smh