Madden NFL 11

Wait, so the passes to the flats is an issue, again?

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Originally Posted by Rudy

Haven't downloaded the demo and probably won't for awhile. I want to spend my time on NCAA 11 rather than a game I simply won't be getting. I prefer college football and only have time for one football game. That said, I don't understand the hype around gameflow and gameplanning. It just seems like a customized Ask Madden. Quite frankly, I often use the suggested play selection that NCAA has on offense (never defense). I'll scroll through the plays as it helps keep the game fresh for me. It picks plays normally based on down and distance - what's so much better about Madden's system other than the user having to painfully pick out all the plays in the beginning?

And Madden didn't improve online franchise because so few people actually used it last year but that doesn't mean you don't fix things. And if they thought nobody used online franchise last year, wait until they see the numbers for OTP. It will be a monumental fail imo.

Also, Phil Frazier said that the percentage of cross ownership between Madden and NCAA was in the single digits percentage wise. I was shocked to read that less than 10% of the people out there own both games.

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I agree that sounds way too low. Every year I buy both.... er.... well.... this will be the first year since 04 that I haven't bought two football games. As for the demo, I played two games the first day and I haven't turned it on since. However, still playing NCAA and loving it (would love it more if the cpu could make a field goal lol)

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Originally Posted by Brandon

Wait, so the passes to the flats is an issue, again?

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Yup, still an issue.

I hate the strategy pad. Plain and simple it's a horrible idea and I find myself just not making any adjustments because of it.

The Gameplan thing is interesting but takes FOREVER to edit, especially since they don't have the formations separated by personnel (like having one section be Singleback 3 WR Trey, Singleback 2 Twin TE, Singleback Ace, ect), but instead of all of the same formation (taking Singleback for example again) in one category making you sift through 50 plays trying to find the counterpart to the running play you just choose out of the same formation.

Overall, I fell like I have WAY less control over my players compared to NCAA. I am playing on Normal speed (mainly because slow speed in that game is just retarded - the NFL is FASTER than the NCAA not slower people, jesus) so that may have something to do with it because I feel like there's no Locomotion for the CPU but all of my guys are trying to run in mud or something. It's awful.

The announcers are the worst I've ever heard. How can people hate on Corso and company on NCAA for so long and not absolutely despise this matchup? Gus is just way wrong being matched up with completely lifeless Chris. I truthfully never cared for Gus to begin with. He goes nuts WAY too much for an impartial announcer in my opinion.

The leaping LBs are still there but at least man coverage isn't so ridiculous (which makes no sense to me that man coverage is ridiculous on default All-American in NCAA but on the NFL on All-Pro, man coverage is just as bad as it's always been) but that just makes me go back to slants, ins, and outs all day long and never get stopped.

I gotta say, another year of not giving a shit about Madden for me. I'll probably play it out of complete boredom and that's it.

With the strategy pad.....I'm getting used to it, but still hate it. OL adjustments are okay but then throw me off when I go back to NCAA. I'm starting to get better with my defensive pre-snap adjustments but can't get everything I want in like I can on NCAA. There are about four things I like to do at times pre snap on the defense on NCAA, I can make get TWO of those in with the strategy pad currently.

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Originally Posted by JBHuskers

With the strategy pad.....I'm getting used to it, but still hate it. OL adjustments are okay but then throw me off when I go back to NCAA. I'm starting to get better with my defensive pre-snap adjustments but can't get everything I want in like I can on NCAA. There are about four things I like to do at times pre snap on the defense on NCAA, I can make get TWO of those in with the strategy pad currently.

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And what might those 4 things might be?

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Originally Posted by Kingpin32

And what might those 4 things might be?

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None of your business :D

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Originally Posted by JBHuskers

None of your business :D

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:smh: I thought we were better than that JB :D

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Originally Posted by Kingpin32

:smh: I thought we were better than that JB :D

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LOL it's not like I'm all that great or anything anyways....I usually crash the line, either man align or press, may drop a LB on spy, may do a LB blitz, those are the usuals.

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Originally Posted by JBHuskers

LOL it's not like I'm all that great or anything anyways....I usually crash the line, either man align or press, may drop a LB on spy, may do a LB blitz, those are the usuals.

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Its already hard enough making individual-defensive-hot route adjustments in NCAA and Madden as it was. You are saying this new thing makes it that much harder? I feel naked on defense unless i can alter a few things. and online of course is worse, it takes longer.

so,..i'm still a lemming and will buy the game. I havent even d-loaded the demo yet. Too much to see in NCAA 1

My pre-snap adjustments are pretty long. Depending on what my base play is.

If I call Cover 2 out of the 3-4 with the NT in a spy assignment and the OLB's blitzing by default. I may change one of the OLB's to a yellow zone, change the other OLB to play man on the TE, then change the NT to rush.

Or if I call a man blitz from the Nickel 3-3-5, I may change the blitzing DB to a light blue flat zone, then change a blitzing LB to a yellow zone or something.

And thats primarily just with the LB's and DB's. I usually may put a DE in contain depending on what I want to do or run a man coverage with one DB and everyone else in zone coverage.

I'm getting a little close to getting those kinds of adjustments down but I probably won't be able to fully until I play a HUM opponent in one of my leagues

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Originally Posted by morsdraconis

Yup, still an issue.

I hate the strategy pad. Plain and simple it's a horrible idea and I find myself just not making any adjustments because of it.

The Gameplan thing is interesting but takes FOREVER to edit, especially since they don't have the formations separated by personnel (like having one section be Singleback 3 WR Trey, Singleback 2 Twin TE, Singleback Ace, ect), but instead of all of the same formation (taking Singleback for example again) in one category making you sift through 50 plays trying to find the counterpart to the running play you just choose out of the same formation.

Overall, I fell like I have WAY less control over my players compared to NCAA. I am playing on Normal speed (mainly because slow speed in that game is just retarded - the NFL is FASTER than the NCAA not slower people, jesus) so that may have something to do with it because I feel like there's no Locomotion for the CPU but all of my guys are trying to run in mud or something. It's awful.

The announcers are the worst I've ever heard. How can people hate on Corso and company on NCAA for so long and not absolutely despise this matchup? Gus is just way wrong being matched up with completely lifeless Chris. I truthfully never cared for Gus to begin with. He goes nuts WAY too much for an impartial announcer in my opinion.

The leaping LBs are still there but at least man coverage isn't so ridiculous (which makes no sense to me that man coverage is ridiculous on default All-American in NCAA but on the NFL on All-Pro, man coverage is just as bad as it's always been) but that just makes me go back to slants, ins, and outs all day long and never get stopped.

I gotta say, another year of not giving a shit about Madden for me. I'll probably play it out of complete boredom and that's it.

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I agree with a lot of your post!!! I suspect Madden will see a slight to moderate decrease in sales this year. A lot of people on other sites seem genuinely upset/dissapointed with the minimal evolution of this game.

The demo was pretty bad. The announcing definitely took a step backwards. At some point, you've got to stop changing who is in the booth so that you can quit spending all of your time recording lines. I actually like Chris... I think his commentary is decently done. Gus is just all over the place... and when he speaks it seems so out of place. He throws out about 7 words then doesn't talk for the next 2 minutes. Very odd.

The game really doesn't appear to have changed. Pretty lame when your slogan is simpler, quicker, deeper or whatever. That doesn't even seem to go together. It appears NOTHING about the actual gameplay was changed. Talk about lazy. It's a little annoying, especially considering their own slogan if you see it on Sundays, you'll see it in our game... whatever. I see basically nothing in the game that reminds me of football. The graphics are pretty, some of the animations look stupid, and the actual gameplay is identical to last year.

Yeah the same went for NCAA Basketball 10 too, I'm sure in time it will turn out to be a great pair in the booth.

I still think Gus did a good job.

Gameplay wise, well they got locomotion, and on normal speed that helps out being enjoyable. I said earlier that I had recorded some video for a Madden project I'm doing and was playing Madden 10 on default speed. Jesus that was horrible. I think Locomotion definitely adds to the game, I'll play Madden more this year than I did last....but it definitely won't pale in comparison to how much I play NCAA.

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Originally Posted by cdj

Last year, it was Madden 10 with the big name features (Online Franchise, Pro-Tak, Extra Point, cutscenes, etc.) and people buried NCAA. This year, NCAA has the big features and Madden has seemingly lost the momentum they built up. I hope we (as a gaming community on the whole) don't get in a yo-yo pattern where every other year one of the football titles is built up pre-release while the other is bashed. It's going to be tough for NCAA 12 to have as many big item/name features like they did this year, while it sounds like Madden is all but stating Franchise & Superstar will be vastly improved next year.

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I see what CDJ was talking about now

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Originally Posted by skipwondah33

I see what CDJ was talking about now

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I see what he's saying as well, but I wasn't blown away by Madden last year either. Steps in the right direction? Sure, but the CORE gameplay is still screwed.

I seriously have to disagree with Locomotion helping Madden. It seems to me that Locomotion in Madden is so subjective, it almost feels like it's not even there. The control you have in NCAA seems completely lost in Madden.

My son (16 months) was rummaging through EVERYTHING and he found the "buried" PS2 pile. He pulled out NFL 2K3... brought back memories as it is actually my favourite NFL game ever! So I put him down for his nap and thought, what the heck.... let's turn it on for old time sake. Literally I have NOT played this game since early 2006. I turned it on and found my memory card and "continued with my Raiders franchise... apparently I am in year 9 with Bobby Hoying as my starting QB lol. From the start of the game to the end (versus the very weak Chargers) I was surpirsed how much I miss all the bells and whistles... eg:

ESPN prsentation
weekly wrap-up show
create a coach
global editing
in depth free agency
fluid run game
pre-game entrances... etc.

I seriously forgot how much was in this game. Now I'm not starting a 2k vs thing BUT if MADDEN 12 is seriously the year of the FRANCHISE MODE then it will need MAJOR revisions to make the experince more fun for the user. Madden 11 feels stale and in all honesty it is. Locomotion will help the series and I'm sure with time I will better appreciate gameflow. The superbowl victory videos are awesome and the pre-game off the bus stuff really adds to the experience. I also like the cut scenes BUT simply put, it is time for this series to be re-booted. As mentioned I will pass on 11 but I fully expect to see an entirely new and dynamic game for 12. NCAA stepped up to the plate and so can Madden!

2K3 was really good - except for the tackle glitch. Can't believe they programmed their stances so obviously. OL stances should be based on formation (and sometimes down and distance) - never whether it's simply a run or a pass.

Ian Cummings has posted in the latest blog that they will be patching in the old pre-snap system. Here's the blog and some background on the change to the Strategy Pad in the first place:

Spoiler: show

Hello folks,

Ian Cummings here, taking some quick time out to talk to the community after the demo has been out for a few days. First off, one great bit of info has been the positive response around GameFlow. Based on our telemetry, 95% of games played have had GameFlow as the default style of playcalling. We do realize it is the default option, which can obviously help inflate those numbers, so more telling is that of every single play called in the demo, 80% of the offensive plays and 86% of defensive plays were chosen via GameFlow vs. the conventional way. This is very positive stuff for us, as we obviously weren't quite sure how the general public would react to such a drastic change to the way the game was played.

Secondly, I wanted to talk about the primary hot-button issue in the community with the release of our demo, the Strategy Pad. As we expected, this feature has caused quite a stir lately, so we wanted to provide some context as to why we tried to unify our pre-play controls to one location.

We realize that the Madden veterans have been using the old pre-play system for years, to the point where it had become second nature. Any longtime Madden gamer could probably change the route of 2 receivers, pinch slide protection, and keep a back into block within a second. Despite the comfort with the way things were, it often caused major confusion for someone new to the Madden franchise or really any gamer who isn't familiar with the controls. I've heard a few comments on Twitter to the effect of "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" Well, when we started looking at data, it was in fact broke. Based on the playtests we ran and more importantly telemetry we gathered from the online connected consoles, we saw some pretty major areas that needed improvement:

1. A gamer on defense would often hit A (360) or X (PS3) to button through play call or pre-play, and in doing so, would get locked into the "hot route" state. Seeing that you are reading this blog, you probably are pretty experienced with Madden, and you're saying "well, that never happened to me". I'm with you...it didn't happen to me either. Well take this into account...did you know that over 2 BILLION defensive hot route context states were entered in Madden NFL 10? That's an average of more than 5 million per day. We discovered that of this number, more than 50% never called an actual hot route. So on more than 1 BILLION occasions, a gamer accidentally went into a pre-play contextual state that they didn't mean to. As a game designer, you just can't choose to ignore that..it's staggering. To be clear, it's not that we wanted to make pre-play controls easy enough for a caveman to use them, it's that we wanted to fix a system that punished gamers for just accidentally hitting the primary button on the controller.

http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas...geGameFlow.jpg
The top level menu that shows up in Madden NFL 10 when you first hit A (360) or X (PS3) on defense.

2. Along with the accidental defensive hot route was getting trapped in states without a consistent way of exiting. A gamer, again presumably looking to skip through play call and preplay would hit the A button, and end up in the "defensive hot route" state. Nearly 100% of everyone's first instinct would be to hit B / Circle to exit out of this intimidating new menu. Unfortunately, in this state, the B button didn't exit, it actually picked a different receiver to assign man coverage to, which dug you deeper into this context. At this point, still the only way to cancel is RB / R1, and B / Circle doesn't do anything different. Worse yet, moving the left stick in any direction would change the assignment of your player, typically with the gamer often having no idea what was happening.

3. Another common experience was getting stuck in a state on offense that didn't allow you to snap the ball. This could be any state from hot routes to slide protection. We tracked well over 2 million instances of delay of game penalties being called while a pre-play menu was up. Assuming that even half of these were because the gamer was "lost" and couldn't snap (and not actually trying to rush out an extra adjustment), we've still got a major problem there.

4. Lastly, there was no way to easily communicate that A/X would bring up your hot routes, Y/Triangle would bring up coverage audibles, etc without a big piece of intrusive UI that had to always be displayed. Furthermore, there was no structure to the button commands in the pre-play controls, which made it harder for a newcomer to memorize which hot route, shift or audible uses a face button, versus a trigger, bumper, or directional pad command.

So the decision was made to relocate our controls to the directional pad in order to unify the commands. We moved them to this one consistent location where the B button was (nearly always) a consistent way to exit, and to a location that couldn't accidentally be pressed by an inexperienced gamer. This change was not made to alienate you, the hardcore fan. As you can see above, the data was staggering and forced us to consider major changes, and we knew all year that getting fans to re-train their brain would definitely take some time. With all that being said though, we gave our hardcore fans the benefit of the doubt thinking that it would be easy for them to learn this new system with a little practice.

We do believe that this change is for the better, and that in the long run it delivers a much more positive experience to the gamers that are willing to try and adapt. Due to the overwhelming feedback however, we will be providing the old-style button commands as an option that can be enabled. We are currently targeting this change to be released around the first week of the NFL season as it will take some time to get through third party approvals. So now that it's out of the way, let's all try to sit back and have some fun with Madden NFL 11...after all, football season is almost here!

- Ian Cummings
Creative Director
www.twitter.com/ian_cummings

They should have always kept the old system as an option. Outrage from the fanbase along with polls stating people would be passing on the game due to the strategy pad caused this.

At least they're patching it back in. I don't get why EA would change it in the first place. Has anyone ever complained about the old system? :D

EA really needs to start focusing on actual issues than changing things that seemingly no one had a problem with. I didn't even try the strategy pad, but after reading about it, it's probably a good thing I didn't. Is TGT going to be getting an early copy of Madden 11 as well this year?