Vision and direction for Madden 24?

[kingsofthevalley]

Good morning all! Curious to know what do you all think the vision for Madden 24 will be? Where can they go from here?

Personally, I feel that franchise and presentation will take a front seat and here’s why. The gameplay on the field is pretty rock solid to the point where it only needs small tweaks and refinement to polish it off. Im not an expert on game development, however, this may free up dev time which allows more focus on “off the field” items this year.

My fingers are crossed for an extreme deep dive into the workings of franchise mode, multiple broadcast teams, actual broadcast representatives (at the desk), equipment, etc.

Like I say, I don’t think they need much manpower for “on field” this year. Gents, I’m having a BLAST, haven’t been this wrapped up in the actual gameplay since 05, really a testament to the great work “on field” this year.

[Hooe]

If some amount of modernization of defensive tactics - including but not limited to a robust expansion of pattern match coverage, read blitzes, creeper blitzes, and/or defensive line stunts - is not front and center in Madden 24, then honestly I’m not very interested in playing.

[kingsofthevalley]

Quote: Originally Posted by CM Hooe

If some amount of modernization of defensive tactics - including but not limited to a robust expansion of pattern match coverage, read blitzes, creeper blitzes, and/or defensive line stunts - is not front and center in Madden 24, then honestly I’m not very interested in playing.

Fair assessment. My knowledge of detailed X’s and O’s is very limited. Did the PS2 Madden’s have that? Do you think it’s possible for those intricacies to be coded in?

[Hooe]

Quote: Originally Posted by kingsofthevalley

Fair assessment. My knowledge of detailed X’s and O’s is very limited. Did the PS2 Madden’s have that?

Madden has had a very limited collection of match coverage calls since Madden 17 (Madden 23 currently has Cover 3 Match, Quarters, and Palms, along with automatic Solo, Special, Box, and Cut checks built into Quarters and Palms play calls depending on the offense's formation), but match coverage took a backseat this year and I haven't been happy about it since that game direction was revealed last summer. Match coverage flat out does not happen in Madden 23 unless you enable a coaching adjustment buried in a menu, which makes playing the CPU very boring because they just spot drop the whole time and I can beat spot-drop zones with my eyes closed.

You can sort of do simulated pressures in Madden now using defensive hot routes, but it requires fast fingers, memorization of said defensive hot routes, and a thorough understanding of the game's available coverage calls so you don't break your coverages. Read blitzes such as what the Miami Dolphins run with frequency the past two years (where the defenders' blitz assignments may change into zone drops post-snap) have never appeared in any football video game.

The NFL 2K series had very limited functionality for defensive line stunts in that you could choose how your defensive line attempted to rush the passer independent of the defensive coverage call behind it. However, those games did not include any concept of marrying the called pressure scheme with the coverage behind it, though, so it was mostly just set dressing.

Quote:

Do you think it’s possible to be coded in?

Absolutely I do. It's just a matter of the football gameplay designers and engineers getting the go-ahead to add more real football into the football game they work on. I really hope the producers at EA let them do that.

[Caulfield]

dont want to turn this into another wishlisht thread but I hope the vision involves more in the game that iscustomisable, not even anything really specific, just more in general. I'd like my Madden to be more sandbox-like. though I would enjoy it if the created faces were unlimited

[kingsofthevalley]

Quote: Originally Posted by Caulfield

dont want to turn this into another wishlisht thread but I hope the vision involves more in the game that iscustomisable, not even anything really specific, just more in general. I'd like my Madden to be more sandbox-like. though I would enjoy it if the created faces were unlimited

Same here. I would love for the legend head models along with all of the current players head models to be unlocked for use. Also, a random face generator would be nice. More motion capture of players milling about after the play would go a long way as well, you can see them shift to a stiff robotic gait in certain instances which breaks immersion.

[Madden Air Raid]

Most likely some flashy "back of the box" feature to sell casuals on like momentum in 22 or abilities in 20.

There are a few schematic improvements on the way. If you paid attention there was a patch a few months ago where they accidently included several test plays called "STUNT_TEST_ET" and "STUNT_TEST_TE" where they had two stunts added to cover 2 man in nickel over. They worked in the sense that the players would do stunts provided there was no tight end attached to the line (then they just rushed straight upfield like normal), but it didn't really ever confuse the offensive line or create issues for the blocking unless an offensive lineman got bumped by somebody.

Things that I would like to see but have no clue if they would add them would be the mable/skate check for 3 match against trips put in the game and some competent RPO defense. We had RPOs added several Maddens ago, but never got the tools on defense to help counter them. Nick Saban and Kirby Smart have a check called "Mix" for their Cover 7 (Cover 4 Quarters and Palms in Madden). Any time the QB puts the ball in the backs belly for the "mesh" the apex gets involved in the run game and the safety has to come down and help more in the pass game. In Madden what happens is on read RPOs the end will crash on the back, the apex will crash to take the QB, and the safety sits back at 10 yards enjoying the show as the QB throws the bubble. We need more tools in our chest on defense to handle RPOs, and we need more tools to handle trips and compressed formations.

Playbook wise I know they intend to expand the custom playbook system at some point. The reason it's as limited as it is now is because of PS4 and Xbox 1 memory constraints, but now they have more to work with. It may not be this next Madden, but I expect by the time the CFB game comes out the playbook system will be overhauled. They completely butchered things in Madden 22 with how much they took out, and hopefully they at least add some of it back in for 24. There are too many coverages that exist in only 1-3 formations in the game total. On offense they took out plays that worked, and took out constraint/counter plays to the base plays in some formations, and in other formations they took out the base plays but left the constraint/counter plays. That stuff needs to be brought back.

[PhillyPhanatic14]

NGL after the Madden 23 nightmare i would be happy if their first bullet point for M24 was "Server Overhaul"

Outside of that, I hope they don't make the mistake of cutting out precision passing. It's a near perfect system this year and needs to always be an option in future games. No need to continue the adding/removing passing mechanics cycle every 5 years.

I expect nothing from this clown studio, but better AI team management in CFM and some new relocation uniforms and stadiums would be great. Just copy & paste the Fifa system with some stadiums that weren't built on the Xbox 360 and it'll be light years better than the trash we have now.