Madden 2010 News Post

Madden NFL 10 Blog: Customization

07:54 PM - March 30, 2009 by Ian_Cummings

Check out the latest Madden NFL 10 blog. This one covers customization, plus a "behind the scenes" look at a design document.

Quote:


	"Hello again Madden fans, we're back again with another weekly blog detailing some more behind-the-scenes exclusive content from the development team as we create Madden NFL 10. Last week was a very busy week with our president Peter Moore presenting the first screenshot [link] and our Art Director Mike Young going into some extreme detail in regards to the improvements and additions made in the shot [link]. This week we thought it would be a good idea to go deeper into an area that we know is very near and dear to the community - the topic of customization. A typical trait of every game designer is that usually they are in love with their ideas. This is usually always a really good thing (assuming their ideas are good) because if you don't like an idea that you are designing or working on implementing, often you won't have the passion to get that "extra something" into the feature to make it special, or tune it 100% correctly, or make it really stand out. As you might expect, this can also be a major downside to a designer, as often times it is easy to get stuck thinking where you know (or think) you are right and you don't want to change that idea. It is so hard to not be defensive...after all, you put your blood sweat and tears into this feature! You worked til 3 am for a week putting in extra details and tuning it to perfection! How could anyone not feel the same way you do?!?!?"

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Member Comments

# 121 KANE699 @ 03/31/09 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PGaither84


	What's funny ot me about this is my friend on PS3 returned 3 kicks in a ranked game. He saved the replays and I wish when you up load them it would show they were all in the same gae so people could see that feat. He had no O and no D that game, unlike normal. However, 3 returns latter and he won 21-20. For some reason it was very easy for him to return the ball when it waskicked to his left. Just a couple blocks, a broken tackle on one of them and he was gone. I have returned a few with Rossum, but it takes some luck as the 49ers don't block so well. I agree that ST in general needs re-tooling. Most game reviewers feel the same way. I have seen year after year IGN talk about ST being a major weak point in Madden, and they give the game a 9.2+ each year. The lack of real, but balanced return options like reverse, fake reverse, return left, return right, hidden onside attempts out of normal kickoff formation [like the 49ers have done many times] and a "safe" return to watch for the fake onside are all missing. The only addition i saw was the much needed mised FG return that has never been in madden prior to 09. I remember playing NFL 2k2 [note: not 5, two.] and returning missed FG attempts. I had to manually catch them and I did it on a whim the first time. My friend and I were so shocked we tried it every time since then and tested it in Madden each year untill 09. So happy 09 had this.

I always return better on the left side, I don't think I have taken but 1 or 2 kicks back on the right side, its more difficult for some reason for me.

Also there were only 25 returns (punts and kickoffs) this season, thats not even an average of 1 per team.

# 122 PGaither84 @ 03/31/09 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KANE699


	It's not that easy in the NFL or we would have a return a week now wouldn't we, we kind of do now but there are teams that go years without a punt or kick off return for td's, I would like slightly better blocking but not by much, its pretty good the way it is now and isn't super easy to score a td. In fact I still havent gotten the 2 ko's for td or 2 pr's for td achievements yet.

The Bucs returned a kick for a TD two years ago! THE BUCS! They had never done that before.

Hester has had multiple games with multiple returns. Not everyone is hest, but let us also forget Bush's first NFL TD was return, or Dante Hall's crazy season, or Packers Fans and Michigan fans [and Ohio state fans] remember D. Howard.

Not everyone is a star returner, but the stars do it a lot. There is a reason why they say "don't kick it to Hester." After 3 seasons he is something like 3 returns away from the All-Time Carrer mark I belive. Also, if you count the post season, I think ESPN said he has had more ST returns than any player in history.

Returns are hard, but not that hard as the real life stats will tell you. Derrville is right on, and I belive the two years before were both even higher.

# 123 KANE699 @ 03/31/09 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PGaither84


	The Bucs returned a kick for a TD two years ago! THE BUCS! They had never done that before. Hester has had multiple games with multiple returns. Not everyone is hest, but let us also forget Bush's first NFL TD was return, or Dante Hall's crazy season, or Packers Fans and Michigan fans [and Ohio state fans] remember D. Howard. Not everyone is a star returner, but the stars do it a lot. There is a reason why they say "don't kick it to Hester." After 3 seasons he is something like 3 returns away from the All-Time Carrer mark I belive. Also, if you count the post season, I think ESPN said he has had more ST returns than any player in history. Returns are hard, but not that hard as the real life stats will tell you. Derrville is right on, and I belive the two years before were both even higher.

After a how many year drought, oh wait, their whole entire history, Clifton Smith also returned one for them last year.

Thing is its still hard to return kicks or punts in this league, there was one person who returned multiple kicks for td's this year (Justin Miller 2) and Jonnie Lee Higgins had 3 punt returns for td's. In fact only 4 players had multiple returns this past year.

Doesn't happen that often man.

# 124 DubTrey1 @ 03/31/09 12:53 AM

Grrrrreat blog. Lovin' what I am reading so far.

# 125 Exonerated @ 03/31/09 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	Kinda surprised few are caring about the injury and fatigue sliders...those have been requests for over 5 years I think. Also, accelerated clock threshold is a number at which the play clock will run down to...you can toggle between 15, 20, and 25 seconds. Say you have it set to 15 seconds, then as long as the play clock is at 15 or above, then it will run down to 15. Same for 20 or 25.

Can I get that down to 5 seconds? I'm already livid at waiting 10 seconds b4 each play in 09 because the CPU takes 10 seconds to snap each time.

Please make an option for 5 and 10 seconds.

# 126 Vikes1 @ 03/31/09 01:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackngoldfan


	One thing that I didn't see in the blog was an option for In-Game Saves. I really hope you guys somehow fit this in the game for us folks with wives and children.

I have a wife and three kids myself.

So yeah...I was hoping to see this too. Maybe we'll get it yet.

Great news in this blog Ian! Love getting Acc. clock, sliders for injuries and fatigue. For lots of us...these features are huge.

Thanks again Ian.

# 127 SouthernBrick @ 03/31/09 02:33 AM

It was a good blog, not the most exciting but a very good blog. I am very excited about the fatigue slider.

I hope this will apply to realistically to all players. wide outs especially so people won't keep dropping back 20 or 30 yards with the QB, and getting 50 and 60 yard gainers to one receiver or any reciever for that matter. The reciever will most likely not catch it in stride or catch up to the ball at all late in the game on a deep ball if their great talent is abused.

B/c I know how people wanna bomb to Moss or T.O. the entire game.

# 128 lujer @ 03/31/09 03:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	Kinda surprised few are caring about the injury and fatigue sliders...those have been requests for over 5 years I think. Also, accelerated clock threshold is a number at which the play clock will run down to...you can toggle between 15, 20, and 25 seconds. Say you have it set to 15 seconds, then as long as the play clock is at 15 or above, then it will run down to 15. Same for 20 or 25.

AWESOME TO THE MAX!

Injuries and fatigue are a vital part of a game and franchise mode... good stuff...

# 129 NYyankz225 @ 03/31/09 03:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnyGivenSunday


	It was a good blog, not the most exciting but a very good blog. I am very excited about the fatigue slider. I hope this will apply to realistically to all players. wide outs especially so people won't keep dropping back 20 or 30 yards with the QB, and getting 50 and 60 yard gainers to one receiver or any reciever for that matter. The reciever will most likely not catch it in stride or catch up to the ball at all late in the game on a deep ball if their great talent is abused. B/c I know how people wanna bomb to Moss or T.O. the entire game.

Yea. In order for this to be a factor the default fatigue slider has to have a decent amount of fatigue because that's what online ranked games will use. For franchise you can adjust it however you want.

# 130 scott209 @ 03/31/09 04:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KANE699


	I'd love to see an illegal shift called in the game if you audible more than twice on a play. This doesn't involve audibling twice and then motioning someone but more than 2 audibles in a play is ridiculous and should be stopped immediately.

+800 We need to be rid of that

# 131 Anti Honor @ 03/31/09 04:34 AM

Acc Clock.

CPU Sliders.

That made the blog worth reading.

# 132 Megatron2k7 @ 03/31/09 04:39 AM

I think some of you are missing my point a little about the speed differential slider.

It looks like it would work just fine the way Ian showed it in this blog section (below) from March 9th. In that blog it looks like we would have "realistic speed" at the All Pro and All Madden levels.

In this new blog the speed differential slider says as follows...

- Full 0-100 slider that compresses the range of speeds between players
- Skill levels will change this value by default

The problem I'm having here is that what if now all of a sudden we won't have realistic speeds anymore at All Pro, and All Madden levels of difficulty. It says "0-100 range of compression".......does this mean when we play online that we won't be playing at sim speeds because we will probably be playing on All Pro...??? Where on the slider is "sim speed"...??? Why would anyone want to compress the speed differential beyond what is real...???

If the slider worked like it sounded like it would on March 9th, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Playing at sim speeds on All Pro and All Madden is fine. It's the new 0-100 range that is bothering me.

I think the game could work just fine without any speed differential slider at all. IMO the speed differential needs to come only in the form of player ratings.... not a slider. It's only my opinion, but I think the differential should remain constant in the game, no matter the diff. level.

I don't know why so many of you accept this. Why would you want a player who should run 40 yds in 4.9 sec. run it in 5.6 sec. instead, just to give you an advantage with your speedy players........???.......It's fake. Young players playing on low difficulty levels will all be playing with the Titans, and running Chris Johnson on Pitch Left / Pitch Right, all day. It's going to make those young players rely on speed more than ever. I thought we were headed in the other direction by making speed not be such a dominating attribute....???

I copied the section from that March 9th blog for you to look at below. Sorry this post took up so much space.

-- Ratings Changes --
After Donny re-rated every player in the speed rating, and we had tuned our speed curves to truly make our game showcase the differences between the players, we were feeling pretty damn good. Being that speed was our biggest concern though, we wanted to check our sanity and tested some different player ratings and how fast each player (in a specific rating range) ran 40 yards in our game. These results will probably surprise you...they sure did us:

D'oh! Looks like we went a little too far! I think we can all agree that we won't be seeing too many folks running a 7.8 second 40 yard dash (video game developers might have those times, but not NFL athletes). This immediately brings to light the very real clash that can exist between fun and realism in sports games. We thought we were dead on - we thought the game felt great, was fun to play, and was really showcasing the differences between players. But when you look at the numbers, it is obvious that doing something that you feel makes the game more fun to play can differ quite greatly from a full realistic simulation. So what do we do? Well, first, we can't break our mantra...again, we're all for realism and authenticity in Madden NFL 10. But also we realize that we're making a game for millions of people, most of which are focused on a fun yet competitive experience, and many of them could probably care less about realistic 40 times. So what's our solution? Read on...
Within minutes of seeing these results, we knew right away that we needed to be able to tune the "speed difference" independently, and tune it per skill level. So our engineers built a nice system for us where we can compress this range however much we see fit, and also set the defaults for each skill level as well. You will see below that a good way to make Pro and Rookie difficulties a little easier is to spreads the ranges of speeds out, while on All-Pro / All-Madden we want to emulate real life as much as possible. We want you to boot up and say hello to Sundays in the NFL.

These numbers are very subject to change, but here's an example of the speed ranges based on the skill level:

NOTE: To be ultra clear, this is NOT the scale we use to determine the speed rating of a player! This showcases how fast a player runs 40 yards currently in our game based on the rating that he is given. Donny determines the actual speed ratings of the players based on many different factors...not just the 40 time of a player.
We also realized that you, the loyal Madden gamer, may not agree with these numbers. Many may believe that speeds should always be a constant, and difficulty should be handled in other ways (I sort of straddle that line myself). But to address everyone's concerns, we just went ahead and exposed our tuning values into a "speed differential" slider into gameplay settings. If you want to play on Pro mode but want all of the players to have more realistic speeds, you can do so. If you want to play on All-Madden but want the really fast players to truly feel faster than everyone else, you can do that as well. That way hopefully everyone can be happy.

How Realistic Player Speeds Affect Gameplay: Overall Gameplay + 10

# 133 Madwolf @ 03/31/09 04:40 AM

As far as the over-lays are concerned, I would love to see some type of over-lay after a play of the QBs passing zones like 2K5 did. I played yesterday for the first time in a LONG time and it was really nice to see the game break down my passing and running game. Passing being long and short left, center, and right, the same for long, and the running game being broken down left, center and right. It was cool to see what areas I or the computer struggled or thrived in.

# 134 l NErd l @ 03/31/09 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megatron2k7


	I think some of you are missing my point a little about the speed differential slider. It looks like it would work just fine the way Ian showed it in this blog section (below) from March 9th. In that blog it looks like we would have "realistic speed" at the All Pro and All Madden levels. In this new blog the speed differential slider says as follows... - Full 0-100 slider that compresses the range of speeds between players - Skill levels will change this value by default The problem I'm having here is that what if now all of a sudden we won't have realistic speeds anymore at All Pro, and All Madden levels of difficulty. It says "0-100 range of compression".......does this mean when we play online that we won't be playing at sim speeds because we will probably be playing on All Pro...??? Where on the slider is "sim speed"...??? Why would anyone want to compress the speed differential beyond what is real...??? If the slider worked like it sounded like it would on March 9th, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Playing at sim speeds on All Pro and All Madden is fine. It's the new 0-100 range that is bothering me. I think the game could work just fine without any speed differential slider at all. IMO the speed differential needs to come only in the form of player ratings.... not a slider. It's only my opinion, but I think the differential should remain constant in the game, no matter the diff. level. I don't know why so many of you accept this. Why would you want a player who should run 40 yds in 4.9 sec. run it in 5.6 sec. instead, just to give you an advantage with your speedy players........???.......It's fake. Young players playing on low difficulty levels will all be playing with the Titans, and running Chris Johnson on Pitch Left / Pitch Right, all day. It's going to make those young players rely on speed more than ever. I thought we were headed in the other direction by making speed not be such a dominating attribute....??? I copied the section from that March 9th blog for you to look at below. Sorry this post took up so much space. -- Ratings Changes -- After Donny re-rated every player in the speed rating, and we had tuned our speed curves to truly make our game showcase the differences between the players, we were feeling pretty damn good. Being that speed was our biggest concern though, we wanted to check our sanity and tested some different player ratings and how fast each player (in a specific rating range) ran 40 yards in our game. These results will probably surprise you...they sure did us: D'oh! Looks like we went a little too far! I think we can all agree that we won't be seeing too many folks running a 7.8 second 40 yard dash (video game developers might have those times, but not NFL athletes). This immediately brings to light the very real clash that can exist between fun and realism in sports games. We thought we were dead on - we thought the game felt great, was fun to play, and was really showcasing the differences between players. But when you look at the numbers, it is obvious that doing something that you feel makes the game more fun to play can differ quite greatly from a full realistic simulation. So what do we do? Well, first, we can't break our mantra...again, we're all for realism and authenticity in Madden NFL 10. But also we realize that we're making a game for millions of people, most of which are focused on a fun yet competitive experience, and many of them could probably care less about realistic 40 times. So what's our solution? Read on... Within minutes of seeing these results, we knew right away that we needed to be able to tune the "speed difference" independently, and tune it per skill level. So our engineers built a nice system for us where we can compress this range however much we see fit, and also set the defaults for each skill level as well. You will see below that a good way to make Pro and Rookie difficulties a little easier is to spreads the ranges of speeds out, while on All-Pro / All-Madden we want to emulate real life as much as possible. We want you to boot up and say hello to Sundays in the NFL. These numbers are very subject to change, but here's an example of the speed ranges based on the skill level: NOTE: To be ultra clear, this is NOT the scale we use to determine the speed rating of a player! This showcases how fast a player runs 40 yards currently in our game based on the rating that he is given. Donny determines the actual speed ratings of the players based on many different factors...not just the 40 time of a player. We also realized that you, the loyal Madden gamer, may not agree with these numbers. Many may believe that speeds should always be a constant, and difficulty should be handled in other ways (I sort of straddle that line myself). But to address everyone's concerns, we just went ahead and exposed our tuning values into a "speed differential" slider into gameplay settings. If you want to play on Pro mode but want all of the players to have more realistic speeds, you can do so. If you want to play on All-Madden but want the really fast players to truly feel faster than everyone else, you can do that as well. That way hopefully everyone can be happy. How Realistic Player Speeds Affect Gameplay: Overall Gameplay + 10

That is a good point you have. Now that I read your comment, I am kind of bothered by this as well. Realism is what I am going for. The last thing I want is a 12 yr old kid "Chees-en" me online. I feel the same way as well in reference from stirring away from "Speed" being a dominate attribute.

I am also interpreting this the same as you are now that you pointed this out. Online (All-pro) is the default setting. This 0-100 compression slider makes me think.....

I hope IAN or some-one from EA responds to your comment.
Good point

# 135 briax87 @ 03/31/09 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	Kinda surprised few are caring about the injury and fatigue sliders...those have been requests for over 5 years I think. Also, accelerated clock threshold is a number at which the play clock will run down to...you can toggle between 15, 20, and 25 seconds. Say you have it set to 15 seconds, then as long as the play clock is at 15 or above, then it will run down to 15. Same for 20 or 25.

Those options for accelerated clock are awesome, should be class

# 136 adembroski @ 03/31/09 07:09 AM

I'm really glad everyone's appreciating this blog so much. I was a little worried people would be really disappointed in something so simple. It's cool that people are starting to enjoy these little things.

# 137 adembroski @ 03/31/09 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings


	"Check out our new helpful button hints under the player" - Us "How do I turn those button hints off?" - adembroski "Check out our new awesome touchdown hot spots!" - Us "Can I turn them off?" - LBzRule "Check out our new killer pre-game intro!" - Us "Why can't I button through it?" - BeZo

BTW, I enjoyed this, but I thought maybe this would have been a bit more believable...

"Check out our new helpful button hints under the player" - Us
"While, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a developer to add a given feature, it may, depending on one's personal view of the circumstances, be wise to consider adding the potential option to disable said feature as many of us would prefer to have a slightly different game experience than others. This is just my opinion, of course, take it for what it's worth." - adembroski

"Check out our new awesome touchdown hot spots!" - Us
"Can I turn them off? Or, maybe make them purple and black instead? I think I should have the option of moving them anywhere on the field I want them to be." - LBzRule

"Check out our new killer pre-game intro!" - Us
"I'm a little lost on why exactly someone thought a pre-game intro had anything to do with football. I understand that some people like good presentation, but I really think you guys should be concentrating on making sure the game is perfect before you look at extras like this. But as long as we're on the subject, why can't I button through it?" - BeZo

# 138 TJdaSportsGuy @ 03/31/09 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvb34


	I'm like know more about "Play Call Style"

I'm guessing that means you'll have the option to choose whether the game will default to playcall by formation, play type, or simply run or pass.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	Also, accelerated clock threshold is a number at which the play clock will run down to...you can toggle between 15, 20, and 25 seconds. Say you have it set to 15 seconds, then as long as the play clock is at 15 or above, then it will run down to 15. Same for 20 or 25.

Best part about that is that now if I want to play my offline games with 15-minute quarters, having the clock tick down to 15 before the team heads to the line of scrimmage will likely give me a realistic number of plays without falling asleep waiting for the clock to tick down, real time. Nice addition!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jistic


	My one concern is that if kicking is too easy, and we make it way more difficult for the human player, will the CPU be missing everything? I guess I just don't understand why you'd seperate sliders in every other area but not special teams? I guess we'll just have to see.

In the past, even lowering CPU FG accuracy to zero still enabled them to make most of their attempts, but also gave a realistic number of misses. I don't have a problem with the sliders being combined.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackngoldfan


	One thing that I didn't see in the blog was an option for In-Game Saves. I really hope you guys somehow fit this in the game for us folks with wives and children.

If In-Game Saves did make it in, that wouldn't necessarily be evident in an options screen. I mean...why would you need any sort of option for this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by l NErd l


	I hope IAN or some-one from EA responds to your comment. Good point

That wasn't a comment, that was a friggin' novel!

# 139 jasonlee @ 03/31/09 07:42 AM

does that mean we can change the injury sliders to have more injurys?And will there finally be a good superbowl celebration?

# 140 JMD @ 03/31/09 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CapnKill


	Ian, PLEASE make sure that these settings stick to on-line games. If I turn Banners OFF and Instructions OFF or whatever I would expect them to also be OFF when I go on-line.

I like this idea. Off line I play on Hardcore and it bugs me when I go online and I have to see those foolish icon under the players feet. Each person should be able to use their individual settings online.

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