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?!?!?"

Game: Madden NFL 10Reader Score: 7.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 76 - View All

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Member Comments

# 141 edgarallanpoe @ 03/31/09 09:10 AM

Great update, great work!!! In addition I would like to suggest the following. Field goal kicking needs to be reworked or bring back the old 3-button 1/2 arc kicking meter. It worked perfectly. Nothing ruins the drama of a football game more than knowing that you have a guaranteed 3 points if you get inside your opponents 40 as long as you don't turn the football over.

# 142 johnprestonevans @ 03/31/09 09:25 AM

Looks great Ian. Im loving the CPU sliders, auto-replay customization and the "contingency plan" for more camera modes. I think these things will really help SIM up Madden 10. Thanks again.

# 143 bigpapa_bliss @ 03/31/09 09:49 AM

Acc Clock being added is great news, a biggy! The game speed sliders are cool too.

What I NEED is IN GAME SAVES-(or at least being able to save at HALF) and CAMERA ANGLES (customizable like NFK2k5 - I think thats one of the advantages of NFL2k5 was you could really zoom in and feel the LINEPLAY as a DT/DE.

FYI - Someone mentioned FG kicking - When I set the FG ACC to 20, it provides CPU w/realistic FG % - however, I'm unaffected (guess I'm just a great FG kicker)..or. we may need a difficulty meter, or faster meters, 3-button press, something different to make a challenge. (Which also makes me think of a Challenge the Play overhaul-but I digress)

Thank you Ian and crew, as the info you provided has me really optimistic and hopeful (I'm an 1989-2009 player) - Franchise ONLY.

# 144 radatdude2 @ 03/31/09 10:03 AM

this is a great update, looks like we will have many options this YES

# 145 mjgill85 @ 03/31/09 10:08 AM

Accelerated Clock - YES!

Accelerated Clock Threshold - An option I didn't think we'd have - great work

More camera modes are planned, currently on the contingency list - YES! (mentioned by Ian before but still...)

Injury slider - Brilliant (ideally I'd like an injury frequency and an injury duration slider but that's perhaps unrealistic)

Fatigue slider - Excellent

Speed sliders - from a previous blog, but still great to have them

Coach Mode - I probably won't use it but it's nice to have the option

CPU sliders - yay, my game my rules!

Stat Overlays - YES! I love these and will have them on ALL, nice to have the option to reduce them though if needs be

Pregame warm-ups - hinted at. Not a must-have for me but a lot of people seem excited so it's good for them

Instant Replay frequency - very good, always nice to have control

Lots of options, several new sliders, all helps me to play the game how I want to play it. Great work, customizable options are excellent and the more the merrier.

# 146 TheWatcher @ 03/31/09 10:46 AM

I had a really well thought out response to this posting, and when I went to post it the page crapped out on me

I'll try to remember it all and post again later, lol.

Anyway, good job Ian. This is what I'm talking about right here. User customization, baby. User customization

# 147 mdgoalie37 @ 03/31/09 10:46 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.

Is random an option? I alwasy thought it would be cool if it was rather random - basically force you or the CPU to take a timeout or get a delay of game penalty. If not I'm glad it's back as is.

I'm not sure if this is the proper blog, but is in-game saves in?

# 148 jbooc13 @ 03/31/09 10:48 AM

i preorderd last week.good thing i did

# 149 TheWatcher @ 03/31/09 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgiles36


	Good stuff. TheWatcher should love this

My response to Ian's focus on user customization is...

# 150 countryboy @ 03/31/09 10:55 AM

* Fatigue Slider
* Injury Slider
* Accelerated Clock

Equals me...

Probably one of the most exciting non-video/picture/gameplay blogs that we'll ever see. Reading those three things raised my anticipation for this game to the next level.

# 151 TheWatcher @ 03/31/09 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coogrfan


	The whole point of this blog was that they don't want to force people to play the game a certain way. Not everyone wants to play sim-style, in fact I'll bet most long-time Madden* folks don't.*

Yeah, I agree, I think that's a sure bet. I wish we represented the majority, but I know we don't. Even though a minority, I think our feedback for improvements is far more impactful though.

# 152 TWeezy @ 03/31/09 11:08 AM

I feel like i waited an entire week, for something that really didn't matter. This is not anything innovative, or interesting. All you did what put everthing on one screen. I think we deserve another update this week.

# 153 countryboy @ 03/31/09 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TWeezy


	I feel like i waited an entire week, for something that really didn't matter. This is not anything innovative, or interesting. All you did what put everthing on one screen. I think we deserve another update this week.

may not have mattered to you, but it did to a lot of us.

# 154 coogrfan @ 03/31/09 11:19 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

*whew*

Another guy who doesn't seem to understand what "customization" means. I keed, I keeeed...

Not everyone wants a "sim experience" (in fact, I would venture a guess that most Madden fans don't). Given that fact, the only way were going to get a sim-type game from Madden is if it's something the user can opt out of if they so choose.

That's where the speed differential slider comes in. It will allow the individual user to tailor the game experience according to their own tastes. If some people want arcade football with lots of big plays, they can just crank that baby up. If others might prefer a grind it out type game with an emphasis on strategy...turn it down. If someone wants something in between, leave it on the default setting for the difficulty level you prefer.

I'm really not seeing a problem here, in fact I think this is one of the better ideas EA has implemented in a long time. It make's it possible for the game to be all things to all people in a way that difficulty settings alone can not.

# 155 joet6683 @ 03/31/09 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian_Cummings_EA


	PS - Accelerated clock (as of right now) doesn't accelerate in the final 2 minutes of each half. I know this has been hotly debated, so if you guys want to bring back that thread again I'd be happy to discuss the decision.

It's a sad day. While giving options for accelerated clock threshold, why not at for having it on under 2 minutes? If I pin a team deep with 1 min left and they need a touchdown, I should feel pretty safe as long as I don't give up big plays. But with no acc clock that 1 minute is equivalent to 3 minutes or so of real clock. More than enough time without any big plays. Boooooooooo.

Edit: So why would anyone want to use no huddle? Why is it in the game? You can call from the playcall screen and get to the line faster than if you no huddle and call an audible (not to mention you can call any play/formation.)

# 156 TDKing @ 03/31/09 11:36 AM

I didn't feel like reading this whole thread, so do we know if all these sliders will be available for online games ? Online seasons ? and if in this year ONLINE Franchise ?

# 157 thudias @ 03/31/09 11:37 AM

Good blog this week and we still have the presser dropping this week as well.

# 158 TheWatcher @ 03/31/09 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joet6683


	It's a sad day. While giving options for accelerated clock threshold, why not at for having it on under 2 minutes? If I pin a team deep with 1 min left and they need a touchdown, I should feel pretty safe as long as I don't give up big plays. But with no acc clock that 1 minute is equivalent to 3 minutes or so of real clock. More than enough time without any big plays. Boooooooooo.

^^^ I'm being serious... wouldn't just getting a defensive stop be the answer? The clock reference seems lke a variation of how teams will sometimes say "we didn't lose, we just ran out of time".

I remember people saying that the Patriots left the Giants too much time on the clock in SB 42. I don't believe in that. I feel that the defense has to make a stop no matter what the clock says and if they give up points it's the defenses fault. When you look at late drives in real life where defenses choke like the Patriots did, you often see several plays where the defenses could've ended the game, just like the Patriots had about 5 opportunities to do so on that last drive and blew them all. It's not the clock, it's the defense not making plays in the clutch.

# 159 ch46647 @ 03/31/09 12:07 PM

I agree with Watcher on this one. However, I really hope that defense is completely revamped this year. I find defense to be very difficult and not as fun as it was in the PS2 days. Next Gen Madden has been very offensive oriented IMHO, and I would be SO happy if I could play as the Ravens and have my opponents completely change the way they play offense in fear of turning the ball over.

I actually noticed Ian played with the Ravens the other day against Michael Young and the Cardinals.(He posted about it on his Twitter) I did PM Ian asking what he felt of the Ravens D and the overall defense in this years game. Unfortunately he did not reply but I am hoping to hear about the defense in one of his upcoming Monday blogs.

# 160 KyGamerLT @ 03/31/09 12:13 PM

Yea that is when i'll be most happy is when I see how the Defense reacts this year.

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