Madden NFL 16 News Post

The Broncos' Defense Dominated Super Bowl 50, But Can't in Madden

05:10 PM - February 19, 2016 by RaychelSnr

In Super Bowl 50, football fans watched the Denver Broncos win a championship with arguably the deepest and deadliest defense to play in the NFL's current Penalty Flag Era (TM). But in Madden NFL 16, gamers won't be able to generate consistent pressure on quarterbacks or shutdown opponents' top receivers using Gary Kubiak's dominant defensive unit (I call them Kubiak's defense, because Madden still doesn't include any coordinators or assistant coaches).

Drive Out, Four Verticals, Inside Zone, Fullback Dive �- those four plays are all it takes to consistently move the chains in Madden NFL 16, even on the hardest difficulty setting (All-Madden), against the highest-rated defenses in the game...

Read More - The Broncos' Defense Dominated Super Bowl 50, But Can't in Madden

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Member Comments

# 1 D81SKINS @ 02/19/16 05:38 PM

Agreed! Defense needs some serious overhauling! Bring X's and O's back into the game and get rid of this button mashing bonanza

# 2 Elpintojr @ 02/19/16 05:50 PM

I can't believe madden still cannot provide an AI pass rushing experience near as good as All Pro Football 2k8. Rex and the rest of EA and Tiburon should be ashamed!

# 3 jaynral @ 02/19/16 06:07 PM

Madden is a video game that has the NFL name on it instead of it being FOOTBALL video game........................end of story

# 4 K_GUN @ 02/19/16 06:08 PM

the (repetitive) response from EA will be to nerf the offense or make DB AI superhuman

# 5 roadman @ 02/19/16 06:12 PM

Good article, hope some of this isn't too late for 17.

Agree with everything stated in the article, but, they did have the match up CB on WR in 11 or 12 and then took it out.

Plus, it didn't work well at all.

# 6 gr18 @ 02/19/16 06:16 PM

I only play offline against the CPU and can tell a big difference between Denver and Cleveland's defense and pass rush,especially against a bad offensive line but understand that online against a human is much different.High rates of success using certain plays and such.

A little surprised though that a thread so pro 2k,anti EA was approved .

# 7 schnaidt1 @ 02/19/16 06:32 PM

Amazing read!! I am so excited to see articles like this point out maddens massive head scratchers as to why features and mechanics from games 8 years and older arent being utilized....

the fact of the matter, you look at the size of madden games..checking in around 26 gigabytes...and its very lackluster in what it offers...

and then you see nba 2k16 check in at over 50 gigabytes...

11 on 11 is 26 gigs...but 5 on 5 is double the size?

and look how feature and mechanic rich 2k is..

kinda tells ya the difference between each company..

I wish that soon articles like this start being reflected in the games score you give them...because like you said at the end...if madden keeps going in this trend it will be a game you watch not play...yet OS's score for the game encourages people that its a solid product worth playing,

I agree with your write up 100% I just think more needs to be done Initially in your reviews of games to stay consistent...if Madden is leaving enough to be desired to not want to play, a review score should indicate that as well for us users who make purchasing decisions heavily based off what OS writers have to say about it.

# 8 ChaseB @ 02/19/16 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schnaidt1


	Amazing read!! I am so excited to see articles like this point out maddens massive head scratchers as to why features and mechanics from games 8 years and older arent being utilized.... the fact of the matter, you look at the size of madden games..checking in around 26 gigabytes...and its very lackluster in what it offers... and then you see nba 2k16 check in at over 50 gigabytes... 11 on 11 is 26 gigs...but 5 on 5 is double the size? and look how feature and mechanic rich 2k is.. I wish that soon articles like this start being reflected in the games score you give them...because like you said at the end...if madden keeps going in this trend it will be a game you watch not play...yet OS's score for the game encourages people that its a solid product worth playing, I agree with your write up 100% I just think more needs to be done Initially in your reviews of games to stay consistent...if Madden is leaving enough to be desired to not want to play, a review score should indicate that as well for us users who make purchasing decisions heavily based off what OS writers have to say about it.

Just a heads up but the massive size differences are usually going to be art-related. 2K may just keep a bunch of stuff uncompressed art-wise and so on as every game does compression and all that differently, which can lead to MASSIVE difference in GB size.

And we can't control if one reviewer on OS likes the game more than another reviewer, you know? So if one person thinks it's a really good game and the other doesn't, there's still only one "official" review and we don't know which person will like the game more before assigning the review. But we do try to allow everyone on staff to give their opinion on new games -- and thus an audience and more perspectives -- beyond just the official review during that launch window so you all can read them. And, of course, even now we're still providing more viewpoints as this article shows.

# 9 darknmild @ 02/19/16 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gr18


	I only play offline against the CPU and can tell a big difference between Denver and Cleveland's defense and pass rush,especially against a bad offensive line but understand that online against a human is much different.High rates of success using certain plays and such. A little surprised though that a thread so pro 2k,anti EA was approved .

I agree. I have fun playing against the cpu offline. Online gamers cheese and exploit the game. Whether its Madden or 2k.

# 10 charter04 @ 02/19/16 09:37 PM

Wow. Such a great article! This has been an issue with Madden for years. I know some would hate if these things were added because they like being able to run 5 plays all game. Then it might actually require running a real football offense.

I just want Madden to look less and less like Madden and more and more like NFL football.

You can just watch that Madden challenge tournament they just had to see how little Madden looks like an actual NFL game when users can do the foolishness they were doing.

Anyway. Big big props for getting this out there

# 11 michapop9 @ 02/20/16 12:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charter04


	Wow. Such a great article! This has been an issue with Madden for years. I know some would hate if these things were added because they like being able to run 5 plays all game. Then it might actually require running a real football offense. I just want Madden to look less and less like Madden and more and more like NFL football. You can just watch that Madden challenge tournament they just had to see how little Madden looks like an actual NFL game when users can do the foolishness they were doing. Anyway. Big big props for getting this out there

Bump! Less and less like Madden, and more like real football, 10 years of gripes summed up in that one statement. We still have a loong way to go boys and girls.

# 12 roadman @ 02/20/16 12:45 AM

As women sometimes say, size has nothing to do with it.

Here we go again with size matters, but here is a quote from a resident game designer:

From CM Hooe, a game designer.

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...offseason.html

Disc footprint has absolutely no correlation with game quality. It is solely the amount of content (specifically textures, audio, meshes, and other game assets) used in the game. Rather, it's how the developers use the content that affects the quality of the game.

I wish I could say that this was the first time I've said this on this forum.

(By the way, the thread is almost 2 years old)

If Madden doubled its disc footprint, the only immediate results you'd see are higher-res textures, higher-poly-count geometry, and a larger sound bank to draw from for commentary (note that this is completely separate from the commentary being any smarter, that is all code-side).

Again, file size absolutely has no bearing on how fun a game is.

Point once again being that you don't need a massive amount of content to make a great game, even in this generation of consoles. There's absolutely no correlation. Game design and game mechanics matter foremost.

To repeat myself from earlier, the thing that changes by adding more content with specific regard to a sports game is atmosphere and presentation. More content adds more player faces, more player-specific animations, more stadiums, more lines of commentary, etc. These things are nice and can make a good game great, but they cannot make a bad game good. A good game must stand up foremost solely on the gameplay itself. With respect to Madden, the offensive line play, WR-DB interaction, defensive play calling AI, defensive run fits, and what not don't magically improve because the game has a bigger disc footprint. Seeing those gameplay mechanics addressed are the things that everyone in the simulation sports community wants, and those things are almost entirely code implementation and refactoring (admittedly with some supporting animation additions will be needed, yes, but that's a difference on a scale of megabytes, not gigabytes).

# 13 Jr. @ 02/20/16 01:02 AM

Really great article. Defense is light years behind offense in playcalling and set up.

The things that Madden has added to help defense are very cumbersome to set up, and I'm not even sure they work most of the time (especially shading). There are numerous times per game when I shade to the correct side, but the DB still allows 3-4 yards of separation for the receiver.

# 14 Hooe @ 02/20/16 01:02 AM

To put an exclamation point on Roadman quoting my post and my longtime frustration with this invalid criticism of sports games that keeps coming up:

At a paltry 122 MB, Undertale won at least seven 2015 Game Of The Year awards.

Video game disc footprint literally is not correlated with video game total-package quality at all. Period. The end.

# 15 bcruise @ 02/20/16 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Hooe


	To put an exclamation point on Roadman quoting my post and my longtime frustration with this invalid criticism of sports games that keeps coming up: At a paltry 122 MB, Undertale won at least seven 2015 Game Of The Year awards. Video game disc footprint literally is not correlated with video game total-package quality at all. Period. The end.

Or for something "closer to home" on a sports gaming site, Rocket League is only 5 1/2 GB. 1/5 the size of Madden, and it was in the running for several OS awards this past year.

# 16 Hooe @ 02/20/16 01:18 AM

To speak to the article Chase wrote - while things like formation substitutions, defensive matchup assignments, defensive strategy adjustments, pre-play coverage shell changes (as opposed to disguised coverages baked into play calls like what Madden 16 does; this functionality is probably my favorite gameplay feature from APF 2K8), and tiered play calling would all definitely be nice to have, no single one of them - heck even none of them in combination - will mean much once the ball snaps if the AI defenders aren't actually thinking like real NFL defenders do.

Madden's defenders have no concept of gaps, gap integrity, or run fits in run defense. Zone coverages in Madden all have defenders basically dropping to spots and not making any attempt to read receiver route combinations. I actually disagree with Chase about man defense; in my experience I've actually found 2 Man Under to be a pretty effective defense in Madden, particularly with press coverage; perhaps too effective. That said there's probably things Tiburon could do from a technique standpoint to clean up man coverage to make it more authentic as well.

Until the in-game behavior of defense changes, IMO one could have all the defensive adjustments in the world and it's just not going to matter, these exploits will keep popping up.

To be clear, I say all this and I've had a blast with Madden 16; to me it's obviously a better game than any of its predecessors, but I still think it's fair to say that it has a ways to go to get where we all want it to be. As it gets better, expectations will get higher.

# 17 SilverBullet19 @ 02/20/16 01:28 AM

Defensive assignments was something that I loved in the 2k series. Its been so long, I forgot it was ever even offered. Its sad madden doesn't have it at this point.

# 18 khaliib @ 02/20/16 05:01 AM

The first thing that must happen is that EA must move away from the "football" being the main, if not only, determinate that drives/dictates what plays out during a play.

Everything (Procedural Awareness) seems to be driven by the current location or desired end result of the football.

Example:
Instead of the Zone Coverage rating representing some form of AI Awareness of a players zone cover responsibility, it dictates how "quickly" a defensive player will react to the ball leaving the QB hand and run directly to the balls ending path-line, to animate out the end result of it being knocked down or INT'd.

This is the tandem animation that plays out even when the defensive players are on opposite sides of the field.

The offensive player doesn't drive a defensive players positioning/reaction to his zone being violated as he should, but the football location while behind the LOS (pocket vs rollout) then as the QB releases the ball, defensive players slide/shift to the path-line.

The ugliness of this is really seen when defensive players running with their back to the LOS are able to keep a perfect relationship to the WR every time as they are linked to meet at the end path of the ball.

This runs true for all other aspects of gameplay also.
- line play
- special teams
- tackling
- etc....

Currently, the football has everything "tethered" to it and until Procederal Awareness is redone to focus a little more on the players, getting the AI to utilize concepts to be more adaptive will continue to be problematic to say the least.

Not even the Camera Views can seem to escape this issue!!! (Broadcast view especially)

# 19 razorkaos @ 02/20/16 08:56 AM

I agree 100% with the article.

But i don't think EA is unable to provide us a better, more "sim" gameplay: They just don't want to.

See, if this was an article about FIFA, it would still be true. I don't play NHL for more than 15 years, but i would bet it does have the same defensive problems.

These games are pro-offense by design. Defense is and always was left behind, mostly because most people prefer playing offense instead of defense. In both games, Madden and FIFA, this is a true statement.

These games are made for the masses, not for us. These games are made to appeal to an audience that doesn't like or even understand these sports: They just want to play with whatever team is the highest rated at the moment (which, for some reason, even have their weaknesses lessened for the game), spam the same 2-3 plays all game long and score a surreal amount of points/goals before the game ends.

So that's why i don't even have hopes of getting a product that really reflects what we see every sunday. They won't deliver, cause they don't need to. Their target audience doesn't care about this, they won't ask for these changes to be made, and as a result, we will still be a vocal minority that keeps asking for something they won't deliver.

I stopped buying FIFA for this reason, and I'll probably not buy Madden again for a long time. They don't make the game i want, i don't buy the game i don't want, case closed.

# 20 Cajungodfather @ 02/20/16 09:56 AM

Offense is always going to be better than defenses in madden. For the same reason that the NFL has more rules to protect offenses than defenses, to allow higher scoring games. The majority of fans now, want to see big plays and high scoring games. I'm on the old school side, I'd rather see two hard nosed defenses slugging it out, but that's not the mainstream thought anymore. Madden will sell more games as an offense first game, as opposed to defense wins championships.

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