Madden NFL 16 News Post

Madden NFL 16: A Noob's Perspective

11:01 AM - February 26, 2016 by RaychelSnr

I have a confession: I’m not a Madden "noob" in the purest sense of the term. Actually, I’ve been dipping in and out of this series since '99, but I never really took the time to learn the game -- or even the sport -- aside from its fundamentals.

I’m a UK citizen, so I naturally gravitated towards sports such as soccer throughout my childhood. In recent years, I’ve had a renewed interest in American football, a sport that continues to rise in popularity throughout this part of the world.

With the advent of new subscription-based services such as EA Access, I'm now able to get my hands on the latest incarnation of EA’s long-running series without dropping full price on it. So, as someone who is far from a skilled Madden player, here’s my perspective on a game I know very little about.

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Game: Madden NFL 16Reader Score: 7/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / PS4 / Xbox 360 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 24 - View All

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# 21 tarek @ 02/27/16 11:25 PM

Great write up. I'm a massive noob too. I understand more and more about the game and what is going on, but for me it's the controls and knowing what I'm meant to be doing. Maybe that's because I have poor stick skills, but maybe you can also talk about how you've transitioned not just in letting the coach suggestions dictate your play calling, but if you've progressed in understanding the game in order to better your performance? I use coach mode mainly because of the fact that if I try to play I'm exactly like you and get picked apart both on offence and defence.

# 22 Fraser G. @ 02/29/16 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tarek


	Great write up. I'm a massive noob too. I understand more and more about the game and what is going on, but for me it's the controls and knowing what I'm meant to be doing. Maybe that's because I have poor stick skills, but maybe you can also talk about how you've transitioned not just in letting the coach suggestions dictate your play calling, but if you've progressed in understanding the game in order to better your performance? I use coach mode mainly because of the fact that if I try to play I'm exactly like you and get picked apart both on offence and defence.

That's a great idea. Maybe down the line I'll revisit this topic and comment on how I've progressed over time.

# 23 Hooe @ 02/29/16 01:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by X_isBringingSexyBack


	I respect your right to an opinion and all, but that kind of hyperbole is WAAAAY overboard for something so ordinary. If that constitutes innovation, then 11 years of no competition has certainly lowered the bar in football gaming to the lowest ground-level of earth. I mean, the bar has been lowered anyway, and I think anyone being honest would agree, but I'm saying that kind of praise for a basic feature that only casuals and newbies would need is a case example of just how low standards have gotten.

I am going to focus on this because it's the only part of your post that is relevant to the topic of this thread. The airing of grievances with Madden in the general case is off-topic so I am not going to respond to that.

I don't know how to put this delicately - you're simply wrong. Skills Trainer is important and innovative. That Madden NFL is the only game attempting anything like it at this point (as far as I know) is significant.

The biggest problem that simulation sports games have on a mass scale is barrier to entry. You have plenty of people who try to play these games who don't understand the sport the game is attempting to represent. They don't know what "hike" means, much less what the proper blocking technique on zone blocking run is. The game developer has a responsibility to teach the user not only the mechanics of the game in question, but also how to effectively use those mechanics to overcome challenges and accomplish feats in the game, and Madden NFL is (again, as far as I know) the only simulation sports game actively engaging this duty.

For example, I don't have an intricate knowledge of basketball, soccer, baseball, or hockey like I do football. As such, even though I recognize that NBA 2K / FIFA / MLB The Show / NHL are doing great things individually as games, I can't begin to enjoy these games because I don't know how to play them and the game makes no effort to teach me how to play. Reasonable minds can beg to differ about how much fault is mine vs the game dev's with respect to how much knowledge I should have brought to the table before starting the game in a demo setting, but the end result is the same - I don't buy the game because I don't understand it and therefore I don't enjoy it.

Madden so obviously going out of its way to teach the mechanics and strategies of football to those who don't have the slightest clue what is otherwise going on is important because it grows the audience of the game and it increases the quality of online competition, which is a net positive for the game's core online modes of Ultimate Team and Connected Franchise. Skills Trainer will also benefit tournament players as the game continues to drive towards authenticity in gameplay and the various exploits and nano blitzes stop working. Heck, the drills are useful even to me, the simulation-style player, because I enjoy partaking in the relevantly devised drills; "practice using Smash against Cover 2", "learn how to use the Curl Flats concept", "how to use the Mills concept against Cover 4", etc. etc.

While Madden Skills Trainer is probably of no value to many people on this board, apparently you included and that's fine, it is objectively important to improving the quality of the game and community long-term. It is perhaps the singular feature in simulation sports games where Madden is far ahead of its peers and leading by example, an example which other sports games absolutely should follow.

# 24 Toupal @ 02/29/16 03:08 PM

I see where you are coming from, CM Hooe. Madden 64 taught me a lot about football. I learned all the rosters, rules, and basic plays from a video game when I was 7. I remember when I first started to play, I was intimidated because my friends knew way more about the sport than I did. But, through trial and error, I figured it out and eventually became a madden/ football junky.

On top of that, I know I'm not alone in being intimidated by football before being exposed to it. I've spent time in the Middle East and Europe, and they are just as big into sports over there as they are here. Anytime I would talk to someone about sports, I would tell them that I was really into American Football. And almost 100% of the time they would say that they couldn't watch it, because it is too hard to understand what is going on in the game. however, when I was in Istanbul, I would see them selling football jerseys along side basketball jerseys.

So I can totally appreciate EA's stand point of not wanting to get too carried away with making the game of football less harder to understand for a new fan.
That's why we saw them come up the "one button mode". A long time user like me finds in worthless, but when I'm showing my 9 year old cousins how to play madden, it is pretty handy.

In contradiction to making it simpler for the new users, just because you make a game easier, doesn't mean you have to water down the game so much. One thing madden has been terrible at the last few years is customizing the game experience. What madden can do is give the users options. Just like when they came out with One Button Mode, you didn't have to choose this option to play an exhibition game. Just like if someone is new to madden, they can set the features to whatever makes the game easiest for them.

Madden just needs to give its users more options and control over the game that they bought. There isn't a reason madden can't cater to new users and veteran players. Just like there isn't a reason they can't make the online and offline community happy at the same time. I know some people hate when this comes up, but there is a reason NBA2k is voted the best sports game year after year. And that is because they find a way to make their fans happy. I didn't start playing NBA2k until 2014, and the last time I played a basketball game before that was in an arcade in the 90's. But I had no problem picking it up and playing, because the game was easy enough for me to walk into the game and pick things up. I still have a lot to learn, but because of sports video games, I learned a lot about the real sport itself.

# 25 Hooe @ 02/29/16 03:44 PM

Toupal - to be clear, I'm not saying make the whole game easier across the board and that's it. The game still has to present an interesting challenge to those who already know how to play, the game's core audience. For the most part, Madden has been recently doing this, though there are always areas where it can improve.

In the case of Skills Trainer, it's not like the thing is teaching something completely removed from real football; it's teaching real football things in there and making them applicable to how to play Madden. I'm all for options, as well, and I think Tiburon is starting to follow this line of thinking; most of the recently-added core gameplay assist options are all optional - Heat Seeker, the tackle cone, Ball Hawk, etc.

In places like Connected Franchise mode, however, the game needs to add both more depth - to satisfy and challenge hardcore players - and more accessibility. A big problem with CFM from EA's perspective is that new players try the mode are intimidated by both CFM's breadth of options and the steep expectations upon the user with respect to the institutional knowledge required to successfully run an NFL team and/or a franchise game save in general. These user then never even finish a single season to engage with the most polished components of the mode like the draft because the game doesn't instruct them how to properly engage with what depth the mode does have, and then hardcore players are also upset because the depth that is there isn't enough to satisfy them.

Madden is a game of many masters - new players, veteran players, casuals, ranked / tournament players, the "sim" crowd, franchise mode addicts, MUT-heads / Draft Champions players - and it's hard to cater to all of these crowds simultaneously, particularly on a one-year cycle. For the most part I think Tiburon is doing a good job of pushing the authenticity and depth of the game forward while presenting said gameplay in a manner with which a new player may easily engage. There's obviously still work to do, however, but they have to do it in a manner that's digestible to as much of their audience as possible.

# 26 Toupal @ 02/29/16 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CM Hooe


	Toupal - to be clear, I'm not saying make the whole game easier across the board and that's it. The game still has to present an interesting challenge to those who already know how to play, the game's core audience. For the most part, Madden has been recently doing this, though there are always areas where it can improve. In the case of Skills Trainer, it's not like the thing is teaching something completely removed from real football; it's teaching real football things in there and making them applicable to how to play Madden. I'm all for options, as well, and I think Tiburon is starting to follow this line of thinking; most of the recently-added core gameplay assist options are all optional - Heat Seeker, the tackle cone, Ball Hawk, etc. In places like Connected Franchise mode, however, the game needs to add both more depth - to satisfy and challenge hardcore players - and more accessibility. A big problem with CFM from EA's perspective is that new players try the mode are intimidated by both CFM's breadth of options and the steep expectations upon the user with respect to the institutional knowledge required to successfully run an NFL team and/or a franchise game save in general. These user then never even finish a single season to engage with the most polished components of the mode like the draft because the game doesn't instruct them how to properly engage with what depth the mode does have, and then hardcore players are also upset because the depth that is there isn't enough to satisfy them. Madden is a game of many masters - new players, veteran players, casuals, ranked / tournament players, the "sim" crowd, franchise mode addicts, MUT-heads / Draft Champions players - and it's hard to cater to all of these crowds simultaneously, particularly on a one-year cycle. For the most part I think Tiburon is doing a good job of pushing the authenticity and depth of the game forward while presenting said gameplay in a manner with which a new player may easily engage. There's obviously still work to do, however, but they have to do it in a manner that's digestible to as much of their audience as possible.

Well said.
Just to throw on to the skill trainer, I liked back in the ps2 days, when madden had training camps. So that way you had somewhat of a skill trainer, and yet it also added depth to the game in franchise mode, because based on how you did, determined how your player would improve.

# 27 Ueauvan @ 03/01/16 05:22 PM

as a Brit who has watched the game since the late 70s when it appeared on TV here, i want more immersion. I dont want simple, part of the attraction of the game is strategy and the interaction between coach and players.

Every Superbowl we get the Noobs guide ..., every season we get the Noob section ...

I have no problem trying to increase player base, but they have to realise that there are some sophisticated fans over here after 35 years plus of coverage. The deal with a certain TV meant that playoffs were only available to that station and black out on Games Plus (which i have). highlights were either 1-2 days later and cut down to 1hr. If i have the tv subscription and the Game Plus how about watch what you want? They havent thought it through for Europe yet and they need to get smarter for fan development in both coverage and extras like madden and other tie ins.

we have soccer manager games that i believe are quite in depth, id like that to be the same for the only franchised NFL game ... if only they had similar developers

# 28 ggsimmonds @ 03/01/16 11:25 PM

I appreciate the article. Sometimes we here at OS take something of an elitist anti-casual/noob position and I don't think it is fair.

Madden's tutorials are superb, and I don't think it gets the credit it deserves for that. Football (of the American variety) is arguably the deepest most complicated of all major sports so it can definitely seem overwhelming at times.

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