Madden NFL 11 News Post

Madden NFL 11 Introduces Online Scouting

07:25 PM - June 1, 2010 by Kevin26385

Madden NFL 11 introduces online scouting. Check it out, over at ESPN.

Quote:


	"I like to throw the curl route on first down in "Madden." Prefer to throw it to the receiver on the right side of the screen. I have the timing down so perfect in my head that I can usually do it without even looking. Eight yards to open the drive. As John Madden used to say, "Boom!" And it's funny, I know my tendencies, a couple of my best friends know what I've been up to for years, but when I go online and play random people, that curl route is still always open. But not for long. With "Madden NFL 11," EA Sports is tracking your every play in order to deliver scouting reports to your online opponents. So now, whether I'm playing against a "Madden" vet in Sacramento or a newbie in Denver, all they need to do is order up my report and they'll know my tendencies as well as the people I've been playing "Madden" against since high school. "Online scouting tracks all of your play-calling and what you like to do in different situations," explains producer Donny Moore. "We're tracking every online game that you play: online ranked, unranked, and 'Madden Ultimate Team' head-to-head."

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Member Comments

# 41 Bgamer90 @ 06/02/10 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cdiddy71323


	(Online) is a very small niche market of people that this will reach, yet it's obviously one of their new key selling points. ANd you know they are going to waste a whole blog on this as well, which takes away another week of something good we may get

Two words... Xbox Live.

# 42 CreatineKasey @ 06/02/10 12:16 AM

Maybe online was a small niche market in 2000. It's 2010.... I've been playing online since the mid 90's.

# 43 Bgamer90 @ 06/02/10 12:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	WTF? LOL! 2013 can't get here fast enough for me!Leave it to EA to take a perfectly good NFL sim idea like the VIP system and splice it up and make you do ish to use it.This is really unbelievable to me.Then some of you guys on here are actually excited about it.With all due respect,with faithful consumers like this,Im really lucky Madden even has a no strings attached offline franchise.

For all we know as long as people don't quit chances are you may not be able to have to "do ish" to use it. They give you coins already with the game. Depending on how much it is to view it, as long as you are completing your games, you may always have enough to view scouting reports. To me this kind of reminds me of the "unlock everything" packs in other EA games. The features are in the game but people are so lazy/stupid enough to actually pay for them. It's no need to jump the gun yet. Need more info about it.

Quote:


	If they annouced a weekly recap show with video being added to the presentation and said you had to unlock it by shutting out all 32 teams on All Madden,some of you think that would be great too huh?

What?

Quote:


	This does not address the true problem with playing cheeser/glitchers inonline ranked games.Knowing what people do is just the beginning.You know that much 5 minutes into the game.The real issue is making basic NFL football aspects work correctly in Madden so the cheese and glitch plays are not effective.If you get any kind of infestation in your home,ants,rats roaches etc,the first thing to do is cut off the food supply. If the devs would simply make playing unrealistically,like throwing one screen pass the whole game,ineffective,nore people would play online ranked games.

Of course it doesn't fix "cheesing"... all this really is is a way to see how your opponent plays.

Quote:


	I keep saying I dont believe these devs have ever played a ranked game online.They just keep looking at numbers and stats,while playing each other.He said it again in this article,how him and Ian were using the feature against each other.I havent seen yet were any of these guys has ever been online and played some ranked games.I just dont get it. ...I hope the devs find a chance to actually play some online ranked games because it's hard to fix something when you havent even seen what's broken.

How do you know that they haven't played online ranked games?

# 44 rsoxguy12 @ 06/02/10 12:19 AM

I like the idea of this, but I have a feeling that "earning" coins through online play will take MUCH longer than simply buying them with real money (just like the card packs in ultimate team). Why would EA offer it as DLC if we could easily buy these scouting packs by "earning" the coins?

Also, it will be quite annoying to face an opponent who uses a scouting report on every single play. I have a feeling that may happen.

# 45 splff3000 @ 06/02/10 12:31 AM

Wait a minute!! Wait a minute!! WAIT - A - MINUTE!!! Did I read this correctly?

Quote:


	Adds Frazier: "What ultimately drove this feature was the hardcore, competitive, head-to-head gamer who wanted the ability, just like NFL coaches, to have a tool to understand what their opponents are doing. And that's why we've focused this feature on online head-to-head and not carried it over to online franchise which we feel is a more social aspect of gaming."

So people that play in online franchises don't want the ability to scout their opponents?

That makes absolutely no sense what so ever. Isn't someone that's a member of an online franchise a hardcore, competitive, head to head gamer as well? In fact, they may be more hardcore and more competitive than your average online gamer. Most people would think they would want to scout their opponents as well. In fact, members of an online franchise would want to scout their opponents MORE than regular head to head guys because they actually have something on the line when they play, like a chance to win the division or a chance to make the playoffs or a chance to play in the freakin ONLINE FRANCHISE SUPERBOWL!!! WTF? WTF? WTF? I really really really hope I don't get in trouble for this post, but that line is pure BS right there and I gotta call it.

Think about this. You join an online franchise, build up your team with talent over several seasons, battle through a grueling 16 game schedule, and fight through 2 or 3 grueling playoff games to make it to the Superbowl. There you are, trying to win the ultimate prize of your online franchise and playing in the most important game of the season. You want to scout your opponent thoroughly because this is an important game, but you can't because someone over at EA thought that it wasn't important for opponent scouting to be in online franchise. Yet, you can go online for a quick meaningless game and have all the scouting tools you want. lol WTF EA?

Now I have no problem with the feature itself. I think it is rather nice actually. The problem I have is with it not being in online franchise. Oh wait a minute, I get it now. Most online franchise groups would not allow members to purchase scouting tools to be fair, so EA would not make any money if this feature was in online franchise. Oh and you can't give coins for online games in franchise because they play so many of them and they could use those coins in online head to head so EA would not make money there as well. Ahh so I see why it's not in online franchise now. There is no money to be made by putting this in online franchise. All of the "features" that have been announced so far have been less than impressive to me and they finally announce something that I am very interested in and they half-a** it..........again. This would be perfect for online franchise. ** sigh ** Well, what can you do? That's EA.

Now to some other aspects of this before I really blow my gasket. I think their intentions are right with this idea, I just think that it won't be that effective against a real true cheeser. I mean if there is a guy that only runs 4 plays all game, then you know he's only running 4 plays by the end of the first qtr. If you can't stop it now, you want be able to stop it later either, even with a scouting report.

Also, in those pics, it looks like they're in game while they're scouting. Well, if I remember correctly, during the live chat on gameplan/gameflow, the dev said you can't change your gameplan during the game, so you either stick to the gameplan whether it will work or not, which defeats the purpose of the scouting tool, or you have to start calling your own plays, which defeats the purpose of gameplan. Yep, it looks like, thanks to their own doing, you either use one of EA's features or the other. It just seems like scouting and gameplanning would go together, but that's not the case with EA lol. Oh well, I've said my piece. I surely hope the mods take it easy on me with this one.

I just had to get it off my chest.

EDIT: This also makes gameflow useless as well. It doesn't matter that YOU know that your opponent runs to the right on 3rd and short every time. What matters is if GAMEFLOW knows your opponent runs to the right on 3rd and short every time and, according to the devs, the defensive call is based on the formation of the offense. Sooo, just like with gameplan, you either use gameflow regardless if it will work or not, which defeats the purpose of scouting or you have to call your own play, which defeats the purpose of gameflow. **sigh**

# 46 Bgamer90 @ 06/02/10 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	LOL! Just up late looking for a debate,huh? You should be on the internet looking for some good baking tips for E3.LOL

lol no, I'm not trying to debate anything. All I did was reply to what you said.

# 47 Mr_Riddick @ 06/02/10 12:53 AM

Question will there be a full blog on this or will we get new info tomorrow?

# 48 Mr_Riddick @ 06/02/10 12:54 AM

Question will there be a full blog on this or will there be a blog focusing on a different feature?

# 49 Mr_Riddick @ 06/02/10 12:55 AM

Mods delete this post I'm on blackberry. Sorry.

# 50 Purple28Pedestrian @ 06/02/10 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by womalee23


	Question will there be a full blog on this or will there be a blog focusing on a different feature?

with backbreaker dropping they need to unload a bombshell, online tendencies that you pay for [in some form] is not exactly the backbreaker eliminator. then again what do i know.

# 51 Bgamer90 @ 06/02/10 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlc12576


	In that case,you should stick to replying to what I actually stated then,right?.LOL

...I did reply to what you said. And you ended it with, "Also I hope the devs find a chance to actually play some online ranked games because it's hard to fix something when you havent even seen what's broken." So yeah... don't really see what you're getting at.

# 52 kmart2180 @ 06/02/10 03:11 AM

Sounds cool but I dont play online enough to care enough to scout random dudes. When is the offline/online Franchise info coming?

# 53 sarlndr @ 06/02/10 05:09 AM

2K5 had this didn't they?

Yep, they sure did. I'm surprised Madden hadn't taken the idea before this. Cool to have if you like to play online.

# 54 Exonerated @ 06/02/10 05:45 AM

Now lets reduce the lag online and I'm good to GO!

# 55 Jono078 @ 06/02/10 10:16 AM

For me this is a pretty meh feature.

I played about 5 games of M10 online. Each game it was all about winning and each guy had their play (notice I didn't say plays) and would use it all the time.

So I don't know how this is gonna help me, sure it'll tell me what they like to do, but if it always works you cant stop it or even limit it that much.

So yeah, personally couldn't care less about this online addition.

# 56 cgalligan @ 06/02/10 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trademarq


	u didn't read the article did u?... if u did and if u read what the dude above u jus wrote u would see that u can buy the coins if u choose or u could jus play online an earn them like the coins for Madden Ultimate Team last year. .. .. but this seems like a great feature imo ... cause i hate playing people that run 4 plays on both sides of the ball all game it gets old ... but this could make playing ranked games fun

pretty sure 2k offered this feature 6 years ago for free...

it was called the VIP profile... It tracked your tendencies and then let other users download them so they could, in essence "practice" vs you...

also, when you get stuck in that game vs that guy that runs 4 plays all game, do you really need a scouting report to tell you that? Wouldn't you pick up on that the 1st time he had the ball???

Either way...

# 57 Valdarez @ 06/02/10 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcruise


	It's the same "coins" that MUT uses, I guess. And while you CAN buy those with real money, you can earn them pretty easily by playing.

The future of gaming is so ugly, and EA's doing their best to get us there as fast as possible.

Remember when we just played games, and companies didn't try to nickel and dime us to death? When features were just 'available'? Or when you 'unlocked a feature/capability' and it stayed 'unlocked'? *sigh*

Scouting reports are nice. 2K games had VIPs which were basically the same. You could even download them and the AI would use the VIP to emulate your play style. It was available from the get go, didn't have to do anything to unlock it, and you didn't have to pay 'coins' for each VIP. You could download any VIP for free. Why is EA showing up 6 years later, with a more limited feature, and then trying to make $$$ off it as opposed to just giving it to gamers? Good idea for a feature EA, bad idea on the limited use.

# 58 ODogg @ 06/02/10 11:44 AM

For you guys complaining about having to pay even virtual coins for these reports, do you not realize that this is in our benefit to have it this way? Encouraging people to stick with games and finish to get coins is a great idea. Just making the reports free would only accomplish half of what this is trying to do. Not only is this allowing you to get a scouting report, it's encouraging people to quit just disconnecting from games, something almost all of us have always complained about.

# 59 ODogg @ 06/02/10 11:47 AM

Of course though it figures that EA comes up with a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone idea for online play and instead of seeing the upside of it all people can do is look at the negative, that you have to pay for it, even though you can pay for it WITH VIRTUAL COINS YOU EARN AND IT DOES NOT COST ONE SINGLE *REAL* PENNY....but then why let any common sense get in the way of a chance to EA bash huh?

# 60 mikeacard @ 06/02/10 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ODogg


	For you guys complaining about having to pay even virtual coins for these reports, do you not realize that this is in our benefit to have it this way? Encouraging people to stick with games and finish to get coins is a great idea. Just making the reports free would only accomplish half of what this is trying to do. Not only is this allowing you to get a scouting report, it's encouraging people to quit just disconnecting from games, something almost all of us have always complained about.

Don't you see??? EA is trying to take over the world with their unlimited supply of virtual coins!!!

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