What we Want: Madden 12 - schnaidt1's Blog

schnaidt1's Blog

What we Want: Madden 12

Posted on January 16, 2011 at 05:21 PM.

(22)

Simply put, Madden 12 has the potential to be the best football game ever made.....and quite easily too, The developers over at Ea really just need to give the community what it wants and Go balls out on madden 12. Here is my list of things that will make it great. In each section they are not listed in a particular order of importance.

Presentation

1. Progressive lighting

2. We have signature animations for QB's, why not add some for HBs, WRs, DBs etc. what I mean is that Adrian Peterson runs a certain way. When u see him run you know it�s him. Running styles and catching styles are different among players.

3. Broadcast integration. Every other ea sports title (major sport) has broadcast integration; NBA elite had it before it was cancelled. NCAA football 11 has it, and NCAA college basketball 10 had dual broadcast integration. I seriously think madden needs dual broadcast integration, preferably from CBS and FOX since that�s where the majority of games are broadcast. Keep Gus Johnson and pair him up with Phil Simms, Greg Gumble or Jim Nantz. With Fox it�s preferable to get Joe Buck and Troy Aikman from if possible, if not, Kenny Moose and Goose. This effort would blow us away. Regardless of what you do, fix the commentary. I hear the same intro every game and the same lines every game. That really hurts Madden 11 lasting effect.

4. Re-do the extra point or do something else! I know everyone was pissed bout this last year, and even more pissed to see they didn�t change a thing for Madden 11. There is still no highlights, and very robotic commentary. I mean, 2k5 had Chris Berman, Mel Kiper, Trey Wingo covering scores, highlights, injuries, trades, and college players...just like real life! The halftime show had Berman narrating the highlights, and post game had Suzy Kulber doing interviews! Come on...that game was made 6 years ago....EA....you have no excuse to not give us this....since the extra point is NFL network based....give us Rich Eisen and gang doing post game and half time highlights, and do a highlight show with them also!!

5. Customizable celebrations. Different buttons will do different celebrations on the way to the end zone. Once we are in the end zone we have a different button set for different celebrations. All which we picked and assigned from a list of options, also throw in the ability for us to get taunting penalties depending on the extent of our celebrations.

6. Weather affects, field degradation and dirty uni�s. With weather, it�s all extremes. It�s either snowing or raining hard or not at all. There should be light rain, or flurries. Field degradation is very important especially when it�s raining or snowing. How about adding weather to change in the middle of games? When it�s snowing�the field is always covered with the same amount of snow and the 5 yard lines are always shoveled clean. That�s not realistic. In all pro 2k8 all the lines are covered with snow and parts of the field that has all the action get the snow pushed away from all the players� cleats.

7. More equipment options- NCAA 11 trumps madden 11 in this category.

Franchise mode

1. Franchise needs a complete overhaul, way more options, I want to build a new stadium but not move my team. Add league suspensions, hold outs, ability to have a 90 man roster at first and have to make cuts, sign players to practice squads etc. I want to be able to adjust how I want to pay my player his money over his contract, either all up front, all at the end, in the middle, etc.

2. Make preseason play like preseason, my backups come in the 2nd half but opposing teams 1st team stays on....lets have both switch...and in similar form to how they do in real life from 1st preseason game through the 4th. When a player gets hurt...and I put him on I.R. the computer still tells me I have to many people on my roster to sign someone, so then I have to cut someone I don�t want to....when they are on I.R. that should remove him from the roster for that season.

3. Bring back formation subs, this is what real NFL teams do to create favorable match ups.....we should have that option. NCAA 11 gave it to us...Madden 12 should have it.

Game play

1. Give us some penalties please!! Go through, look at the stats, and make teams who are more penalized in real life get similar penalties in the game. Also, why do I get penalized for pass interference yet when it�s very clear the CPU pass interferences on me�it�s never called. I�m sick of feeling like I am being cheated.

2. Fix play action blocking

3. Fix kick return blocking

4. Remove hyper speed towards the ball...whether its receiver or db or lb, they all have this little burst of speed towards the ball, it needs to be gone. Also�.this stupid linebacker hyper super jump to swat a ball away at last second is so unrealistic. Watch a football game�.it never happens especially when their head isn�t even facing the football.

5. I�d say that 80% of the time I am throwing a ball over 20 yards�.the receiver always has to wait for the ball and slow down. Why can�t I hit a receiver in stride�these are NFL quarterbacks!!

6. A few years ago madden gave us formation audibles....you could run the same play but audible to a diff formation...that needs to be brought back.

7. Bring back all the things that people fell in love with madden on Xbox and ps2. My idea is bring all this back as options for people to use within a game. To each his own but this allows people who liked certain things to play with it, and those who didn�t not to. I am talking:

playmaker
man lock on/off
vision cone
ea sports back track
lead blocker control
create a play

These can all be in settings and can be toggled on or off.

8. The addition of strategy pad had pissed a lot of people off, and what makes it worse is that no one can use it until Ea fixes the CPU QB. Hardly ever in real life do QBs walk up and say hike....they always scan the defense and make adjustments.....EA should make the CPU QBs take at least 10-15 sec off play clock depending on situation so we can make our defensive adjustments. Make it a chest game.

9. Another thing, my franchise team�s defense is built of speed. I want a fast defense. Don�t get beat deep and keep everything in front of me. With my game plan on defense I normally play a very solid defensive game, but I am sick of CPU teams hardly ever having long drives to score. It�s always a big play, and what pisses me off about it....it�s that it�s a big play off of a 7 yard pass and they CPU breaks like 6 tackles and is gone. This happens AAAAAAAAAAAAALLL THE TIME. It�s very frustrating that that�s the way the CPU scores. This needs to be fixed.

Features/Convenience

1. For create a player, steal a page from 2k and allow full facial design, this will also mean draft classes should have mostly different looking players.

2. I think they should add ratings of aggressiveness, consistency, and likeliness to get penalized.

3. I also think they need to change what ratings are shown for players. With Tom Brady, I don�t need to see what his defensive ratings are. In fact the only ratings I need to see are speed, awareness, agility, acceleration, injury, swagger, and pass related ratings. This should be implemented for all positions. If we change a players position, then it shows us what his ratings for that position are. Everything else is just irrelevant

4. I was thinking they should kind of steal another page from 2k. This one from 2k basketball where during the season u can send certain players to do mini drills and u can potentially help a player improve during the season. I also think we should have different offseason drills we can send different groups of players too focusing on different aspects of the game. This will allow us to build the team we want. A ground it out team with a power back, or we can make our version of the greatest show on turf. We can send players to do different drills to help dictate the type of defense we want based on the ratings the drills effect.

5. Full length replays with broadcast camera angles.

6. In the Huddle, after we either choose game flow or pick our own play, let us set the snap count or go on a silent snap count.

7. Why have set snap counts or silent snap count? For the addition of home field advantage affects.

8. Momentum Changes. We saw what momentum did for the Eagles against the Giants. The momentum factor is huge part of the NFL ask any player. Why shouldn�t this be in Madden 12?

Madden 12 doesn�t need to have a whole bunch of crazy features or additions to the sell the game. Just do some simple stuff that we the community want and the game will sell the most in its illustrious history.

Comments

# 1 Facts @ Jan 16

Great stuff man

# 2 MarvellousOne @ Jan 16

Very Very nice list indeed. I agree with what you have said here

# 3 YanksFan4Life @ Jan 17

Completely agree with everything....although some of this stuff might have to wait for madden '13

like the extra commentary etc. BUT tbh MADDEN 12 really needs NCAA's Graphics<<<

# 4 poiszg @ Jan 17

we should be able to fire coaches in season, hire a pool of created college coaches

see some animations like Rex Ryan running on the field (illegal though) jets extending their arms in an airplane motion

in gameplay, we should be able to hold the no huddle button to make the offense set up faster to down the ball for a last second field goal, or run an Oregon Ducks style offense with the option of a methodical slow it down Colts no huddle.

add some different special teams formations like the onside kicks the Patriots used against the jets (1-16-11) or in kick offs the way the Giants use all season. Be able to substitute the players on the kickoff formation (the Bears have Devin Hester, Johnny Knox, and Danieal Manning so no one could cheat Devin Hester).
Wanna see some opportunities to lateral the ball a la Ed Reed

Franchise mode

fix the ncaa draft class. the rookies that are coming in are 22-24 years old and in real life they come in as 20-22 years old.

(for the record, I am not a Jets fan)

# 5 Dazraz @ Jan 17

Good stuff. Well thought out. Now if only someone from EA would take a look!

# 6 ThunderCat838 @ Jan 17

pretty much the same way i feel, and probably the way most feel... lets just see if it was happen now....(doubt it)

# 7 Stikskillz @ Jan 17

Good list, unfortunately we've seen many others like it. I've written one in the past also.

"EA Football" is DEAD to me until EA decides to up the ante and compete with The Show and NBA2K.

# 8 schnaidt1 @ Jan 17

yea i know alot of this is stuff that everyone knows madden needs....

but ive never seen anyone say anything bout changing ratings and adding a few ratings. and full facial design and choosing snap count or silent snap count cuz of home field advantage

or momentum..

those are the things i feel are very rarely talked bout as far as additions to the game

# 9 johnprestonevans @ Jan 18

Fantastic blog post. This is a very nice and comprehensive list. What stands out for me most with Madden are the presentation problems. It simply doesnt look or sound like a real NFL broadcast. Where games like NBA2K and MLB The Show are pushing sports games to near-telecast quality, Madden sadly falls behind in NFL presentation. Fix the Extra-Point show. EA really needs to do what 2K5 did with their highlights, commentary and analysis. Customizable camera angles (so that we can finally simulate the real broadcast ones).

Progressive lighting and dynamic weather effects should be staples in todays game. Full replays with broadcast style camera angles are a must. Out of town updates (live) in franchise mode need to be in there.

Gameplay needs to keep striving for realism. I really like the part of this post that talks about not being able to hit receivers on the run. I cant stand how all my deep passes force the receiver to wait. That's not realistic. Blocking AI needs to be fixed in many areas. So much can be done to get Madden back in shape.

# 10 poulka @ Jan 18

I agree with you I liked Madden 10, but Madden 11 is a mixed bag. Madden definitely need progressively lighting, more weather combinations and changes during the game and YES dirty uniforms. I like to see degradation of fields and uniforms. Gameplay fixes are needed too. One last item make preseason count, why not at the beginning of the second season or do like NHL 10 start in offseason have players to try and make the team. So you have to cut down in preseason like the real counterparts.

# 11 chrisdakid1 @ Jan 19

EA Step ya game up if your consumers are still talkin about NFL 2K5 you might wanna take a look at changing things up a bit in the way of 2k

# 12 jp76 @ Jan 19

I haven't played Madden in a couple of years but if all of these things are missing/broken then it must be a very disappointing game. I do have NFL 2K5 and remember it being very good. Is the game fun? Or is it just disappointing in regards to simulation?

# 13 Sabredj @ Jan 20

In game saves, In game saves, In game saves!!!!!!!!!!
The #1 reason that I haven't played Madden as much as I could have, period! Seems so trivial and yet another reason why MLB: The Show, is so great!!!