Madden 12 News Post

Madden NFL 12 Gameplay Q&A (ESPN The Gamer)

07:31 AM - April 28, 2011 by Molarmite

Jon Robinson of ESPN The Gamer has interviewed Madden NFL 12 Producers Phil Frazier and Mike Scantlebury to get a feel for what fans should be looking for in the gameplay department come August 30.

Quote:


	"The biggest difference gamers will notice right away, however, is the increased violence of every hit. With the old Pro-Tak tackling system, the game turned into gang tackles where groups of players ended up huddled together pushing a pile one way or another. But now that the new tackling system has more to do with momentum and point of impact, instead of watching a pile moving in boring fashion, now one defender might grab the ball carrier while the second defender charges in and cleans the pile out."

Source- Madden NFL 12 Gameplay Q&A

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Member Comments

# 1 Exonerated @ 04/28/11 07:49 AM

sick.

this game is gonna be off the hook lol.

# 2 Hooe @ 04/28/11 07:52 AM

Quote:


	Phil Frazier: You can have up to 400 plays and up to 75 individual sets in your custom playbook. You can also have up to eight custom playbooks saved. And with 400 plays, I don't think our fans and our community are going to have any problem filling out a playbook. Mike Scantlebury: We added a new pump fake mechanic where you can actually pump fake towards a specific receiver. We think this is something the hardcore will utilize as it really ups the value of our double moves. Now you actually have a reason to call some of these double move routes like the post corner because when you pump fake towards a specific receiver, the defensive back is more likely to bite. Phil Frazier: The way it worked before was more of a generic pump fake, but now you can actually direct where you're faking to throw the ball. So now you can pump fake one direction, then throw the ball to the other side of the field. Another thing we added this year is the ability to adjust the shading of your defensive backs on receivers. Now you can play press on an individual receiver on a play as opposed to playing press on everybody. You can also have a defender shade inside or outside of the receiver depending on whether you press shade left or shade right. Or you can just back one guy off and give him extra space. We give you a lot of options, and while some of these might sound like small features, with our goal to be true to the game and true to the NFL, we want to make sure we're giving our "Madden" fans ultra-fine control over our defense this year. It has been a while since some of these features have been in our game and we're glad to finally have them back.

This is my happy face.

# 3 J-Unit40 @ 04/28/11 07:54 AM

And Madden comes back onto my radar again.

Looking very good this year EA. NCAA 12 and now Madden 12 too!

# 4 carnalnirvana @ 04/28/11 07:58 AM

i am hoping an praying the cpu can benefit fram these changes, lets give them custom playbooks or let them actually pump fake....

i wish they would see things this way the AI needs these options too

# 5 Jd_Seven @ 04/28/11 08:16 AM

lets see if this new tackling system works correctly, sounds impressive. How great does it look during gameplay?

# 6 jmurphy31 @ 04/28/11 08:47 AM

Glad to see defensive shading is in. I also thought Mike's answer about why it took so long to get zone coverage correct was funny.

One question though. Is pro-tak gone or modified?

# 7 die2cry @ 04/28/11 09:11 AM

wow sounds amazing!!!! cant wait to see some videos......

# 8 ch46647 @ 04/28/11 09:13 AM

"Pro-Tak is OUT, point of contact tacking is in"

This is music to my ears as I never liked the pro-tak tackling system! However, it is just amazing how the #1 feature put into the game two years ago is already scrapped. This is why Madden is where it is today. It seems like nothing is really implemented correctly or built on after it is put in the game.

I am also thrilled that they added WR shading and press back in the game. Hopefully they added a TON of animations for WR/DB interaction as well. This is much needed.

# 9 jmurphy31 @ 04/28/11 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ch46647


	"Pro-Tak is OUT, point of contact tacking is in" This is music to my ears as I never liked the pro-tak tackling system! However, it is just amazing how the #1 feature put into the game two years ago is already scrapped. This is why Madden is where it is today. It seems like nothing is really implemented correctly or built on after it is put in the game. I am also thrilled that they added WR shading and press back in the game. Hopefully they added a TON of animations for WR/DB interaction as well. This is much needed.

I never understand why EA does this all the time (I can see it happening every now and then, but it seems like every big feature gets removed a year or two later). I am wondering with custom playbooks in will game planning still be in the game or will it to be removed

# 10 RGiles36 @ 04/28/11 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ch46647


	This is music to my ears as I never liked the pro-tak tackling system! However, it is just amazing how the #1 feature put into the game two years ago is already scrapped. This is why Madden is where it is today. It seems like nothing is really implemented correctly or built on after it is put in the game.

I have to agree.

Like I said a few wks ago, M10 was a solid football game and turned the franchise around. But I think they tried to accomplish a lot without re-inventing the wheel. They tried to improve tackling and blocking with existing code, and I think they've arrived at the conclusion that they can not.

So they're going back and re-building the game, piece by piece.

# 11 ch46647 @ 04/28/11 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgiles36


	I have to agree. Like I said a few wks ago, M10 was a solid football game and turned the franchise around. But I think they tried to accomplish a lot without re-inventing the wheel. They tried to improve tackling and blocking with existing code, and I think they've arrived at the conclusion that they can not. So they're going back and re-building the game, piece by piece.

You are probably correct about this and Adembroski tried to tell us this several times without actually saying it. Unfortunately, with this new approach it will probably still be 2-3 years before gameplay is where it needs to be.

They still need to fix:

1. ANIMATION overhaul. The animations still look choppy and disjointed.
2. Passing game- More realistic velocity of passes, more ability to put a touch and arc on the pass, route based passing, etc..
3. Locomotion and foot planting- This may still be Maddens biggest area in need of improvement. They need to put FIFA's entire locomotion AND foot pinning technology in.
4.More realistic AI and ADAPTIVE AI. They made a big deal about this in Madden 10 and never said a word about it since.
5. Realistic DL play and DE's running actual arcs when pass rushing.
6. WR/DB interaction- They need to add a ton of realistic looking animationd in this department.
7. Realistic QB movement- No more QB's sprinting around and turning their back to the play to turn around and sprint. Make it like APF2k8.
8. PLAYER SPECIFIC animations based on ratings. The 2k team has always been great with this and it makes every player look and feel different.
9. Overall ratings in the game need to matter more. Speed is the only real rating that seems to consistantly work.

If they could get these gameplay fixes into the game we may actually be onto something..

# 12 PSRusse83 @ 04/28/11 10:21 AM

I kind of hope all tackles arent just going to be collision and done. I mean sometimes there is a pile that is rubbing up against each other I think Pro Tak type things should happen every now and then

# 13 PSRusse83 @ 04/28/11 10:24 AM

Mike Scantlebury: Instead of having tackles where guys are stood up and other defenders are adding on just for the sake of the gang tackle, now we have a much stronger, much more powerful impact that knocks the ball carrier down almost immediately.

This is what im talking about. Thats not exactly a great thing.

# 14 paptester @ 04/28/11 10:24 AM

Its crazy how they finally adding back shading and individual press or back off for defensive backs. I mean they had these features back in the PS2 days and now they finally adding this in. That's 1 of the big problems i had with madden over the years. To me madden hasnt been the same since the PS2 days. Best madden is with

# 15 paptester @ 04/28/11 10:25 AM

Ray Lewis on the cover

# 16 LorenzoDC @ 04/28/11 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgiles36


	I have to agree. Like I said a few wks ago, M10 was a solid football game and turned the franchise around. But I think they tried to accomplish a lot without re-inventing the wheel. They tried to improve tackling and blocking with existing code, and I think they've arrived at the conclusion that they can not. So they're going back and re-building the game, piece by piece.

Just speculating, but here's what I'd guess:

the suits have not been willing to devote deep resources to the football series, and thought they could rest after M10, which basically implemented more surface fixes to greater fan and sales benefit.
they tried that again with M11, and decided they could neglect core gamers because they believed they could take that market for granted and the marginal cost of doing what the core fans wanted was much higher. So, they went with more surface-like things to capture more market share among people who did not really know the series. They said to themselves the game was to inaccessible, they wanted to capture the younger demographic and do more online.
Meanwhile, that didn't work out so well, core gamers got pissed at M11 and sales dropped off after a decent first start. The game did not have sales "legs." Doing nothing with franchise mode especially offline sent a strong signal to core fans that they were expendable. Bad move.
At the same time, other titles like FIFA had gone in a different direction by catering to core gamers and these were successful titles with good continuing sales and brand engagement, onlione and off. And it just so happened a guy deeply involved in this approach had a personal football background.
Going into M12 development planning, they maybe already intended to do more work on offline franchise mode but the problems with M11 led them to start talking on the side with Weber to get his ideas on where to go with the football products. He told them what they would have to do, they started to buy in conceptually, and made the decision to bite the bullet and do deeper development work on core game from the roots of the code, adding staff but allocating them to Madden and NCAA to share costs and scale out the benefits. So, even before they put Weber in charge with a new business card, they were moving in his direction, bought off on his plans in concept and then hired him to run the football brands. So even before he had the title, he was exercising some influence.
Now Weber is going to focus on the core gameplay as the necessary strategic precondition to getting market scale and new players, through buzz that builds on brand fanatics in the core community. And he's been given the resources and the authority to do it.
Cummings played the hand he was dealt, has probably been getting burned out, and maybe wanted to grow into the role Weber ultimately has. There may have been some behind the scenes politics and competition between them, even as Weber was consulted on football gaming direction early in the NCAA/M 12 development cycle. Cummings lost, his old friend had a startup, he found himself a new job. Weber now gets to put his own people and department heads in place. I wouldn't be surprised if there is more turnover, without much public fanfare, after this years versions release.

All of that is pure speculation. But I've been around a lot of business transitions in management and strategy, and this story seems, to me at least, to be consistent with what we've been seeing.

# 17 Rules @ 04/28/11 10:34 AM

My interest meter just went up a few more notches. If they can nail the commentary and eventually having changing working weather during the game then I may just end up buying Madden again.

# 18 Exonerated @ 04/28/11 10:36 AM

[insert generic complaint unrelated to the blog]

This game is going to be great!

# 19 Only1LT @ 04/28/11 10:58 AM

I must say that everything that they have said SOUNDS impressive. Unfortunately, I've danced this dance WAY too many times, so what they say and what I play, usually don't jive. I am definitely more optimistic than I have been for this franchise in a long, long time though. Even though I have heard great pitches from them before, somehow, this sounds different. I'm still not buying yet though lol.

They mentioned that the new tackling system and how they eliminated morphing and suction also benefits the trench game. If rushers can actually play like real rushers now, and have movement while engaged, or at the very least can avoid blocks that they always should have been able to avoid, then this will be a huge improvement for the game. The problem is that when they said that Pro-tak would not just be for tackling, but would benefit blocking, that turned out to be hogwash (for both actually) so that has me worried that this is just more rhetoric, but again, IF true, this will be huge.

Glad that the individual audibles are back.

Glad to hear that the Football has been shrunk, finally.

Custom playbooks? Awesome. The only thing is that we go from them saying it can't be done because of space limitations, to BLAM, 400 play playbooks. I'm sorry if no one else agrees, but I call bull ish.

The new zone coverage AI SOUNDS great. Can't help but think that it will feel incomplete though without a means to actually LOOK defenders off, but I guess baby steps. Being able to pump fake to specific receivers (how they could not have this for so long is beyond...) could fill the void I guess, but it's a cut corner method in my book. I'm assuming that they will be using the 2K double tap the button method to fake now, which is intuitive, so that's good if my guess is right.

I like that they are still focusing on the visual aspect of the game as I don't think this game is as great looking as most do (I know I'm in the minority, but I have a very critical eye lol). Still need more work in this department. Wish it weren't so bright and cartoony and were more dark and subtle like NCAA, or at least somewhere in the middle of both, but at least they are still tweaking it. And they haven't actually said it, but I will guess that dynamic lighting is in as well.

Very cool on the 3D grass, uniform, and field degradation. Ditto snow and pellets being kicked up. Keep it up guys.

Still in a wait and see mode (I have to be with these guys) but they have definitely awakened some dormant excitement in me. Long dormant lol. It seems like they might actually (miraculously?) get it. They are even using forum defined terms in their language (the actually said consecutive hit or impact or something along those lines lol).

It's weird. It's like so many things that we have been asking for are all coming at once after years of pining. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least ponder the plausibility or implausibility of two events having a correlation. Namely Ian leaving, and this seemingly new found perspective on the game, including the ridding of Pro-tak which was strongly linked to Ian, whether that is accurate or not. Not saying there is a correlation, just that it seems curious. Maybe my mind is the only one that works that way.

In any event, I am not definitely buying, but I am much closer than I thought possible, this soon. I am really pumped for the demo, if that counts for anything.

If these improvements pan out, and they ever did something (anything) with their animation tech, and did something to bring the passing game in to this century, Madden would be a game that I would be proud to have someone call me a fanboy for.

# 20 kackle85 @ 04/28/11 11:03 AM

While I do agree that people are sometimes overly critical of madden games the truth is that without those complaints we may have never seen EA actually put the effort into making their game better. You can say "vote with your wallet" but the devs do read fan feedback and without specific complaints they wouldnt know what to fix even if sales were lagging behind. The squeeky wheel gets the grease. With that being said i am actually looking forward to this years game even though i dont expect it to be all that we want it to be I gaurantee that it will be a big step in the right direction....a bigger step than we have seen the past few years even.

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