Strategy Pad Is Optional In Madden 11

After the uproar seen across the Madden community regarding the strategy pad in Madden 11, Ian Cummings was forced to respond with an official blog.

Check out some of his comments below…

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.

As you can see, the strategy pad was a feature custom made for the “average” player. It really is quite amazing that so many people had problems with the past defensive hot route system. The past system was very easy to use if you took just a few minutes to read the control manual. I do not believe we should be making such big game play changes to satisfy people who will not take the time to learn such an important feature.

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!

At the end of the day, EA has decide to provide a patch that will make the strategy pad optional. This is great news because it will make everyone happy.

To view Ian’s complete blog, click here!

Lastly, big thanks goes out to Ian and the guys at EA for being proactive in fixing this issue in a way that will satisfy all.

© 2010, Madden 2011 Tips | Madden 11 Tips | Madden Cheats. All rights reserved

Popularity: 41% [?]

Madden 11 Online Gameplay

Madden 11 is drawing closer, and people are beginning to get their hands on the retail version of the game. Below, you will find a clip of exclusive Madden 11 online game play featuring the Raiders and Saints.

From this video, it is clear that “nanos” are still abundant in Madden 11. “Nanos” refer to extremely fast blitz plays that can sack the QB in under a second. Another interesting nugget was the overall effectiveness of the run game. It was quite evident that the run game will be a major force this year. I have to admit I was surprised to see McFadden get caught from behind in the open field. I am hoping that fast RB’s will not commonly be run down from behind in the open field as they were in Madden 10.

© 2010, Madden 2011 Tips | Madden 11 Tips | Madden Cheats. All rights reserved.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Madden 11: NFC East and West Preview

Two new Madden 11 Videos have been released today. We now get to see a preview of the NFC East and NFC West that showcases live game play from Madden 11. Take a look below at the videos.

NFC EAST:

NFC WEST:

I hope you have enjoyed taking a look at this game play featuring the teams and star players from both divisions. Stay tuned throughout these next few weeks as we continue to drop Madden 11 News leading up to its release.

© 2010, Madden 2011 Tips | Madden 11 Tips | Madden Cheats. All rights reserved.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Madden 11 Demo Available July 27th

The Madden 11 demo will be available for both the Xbox 360 and PS3 on July 27th.

We have known for a while now that the demo will use five minute quarters and match up the New York Jets against the Indianapolis Colts, and today we have details to reveal. The demo will feature the ability to tweak and adjust your game plan using the new game flow feature. Additionally, you will have the ability to select the game difficultly as well as adjust the game play sliders.  Finally, the game will be played at the Jet’s stadium.

EA has clearly upgraded the overall experience of the demo this year. Last year, the quarters were only two minutes long.  I am happy to see that EA realizes the importance of the demo, and I hope in the future that EA will give us a wider selection of teams and play books to sample.

Let the countdown to July 27th begin!

Popularity: 26% [?]

Madden 11 AFC North and South Preview

EA Sports continues to preview each division as we move closer towards the release of Madden 11. Today, we get a sneak peak at the AFC North and South. These videos provide a glimpse of real Madden 11 game play that focuses on the teams and star players for these two divisions.

AFC North Preview:

AFC South Preview:

Popularity: 29% [?]

Madden 11 Online Team Play

One of the most anticipated features for Madden 11 is Online Team Play. EA has released a ton of new information on how exactly Online Team Play will work!

Pre-Game:

Once you’ve started your Team Play session, you’ll need to join a side and begin the set up process.  The first user on either side is the Team Captain.  The Team Captain is responsible for setting up the team and has control over the team you’ll play as, the uniform you’ll wear and the playbooks you’ll use.  The Team Captain will also be the one in charge of making coaching decisions like penalties, injuries and depth chart movements in the game.  Your team’s captain can be easily identified on the field by the Team Captain patch next to their name.  One of the main new components of Team Play, and the first thing you’ll be asked to do when joining a side, is to select your squads.

The way squads work is that each team is broken up into three squads on Offense (QB, RB and WR) and three squads on Defense (DL, LB and DB).  Each user owns their squad and can only switch between players that belong to that squad.  Aside from the three positional squads on both sides of the ball, there’s also a fourth “ANY” position, which gives you the versatility to switch between any non-controlled players on the team.  Although you can switch around to any open player, the real intent is to encourage you and your teammates to create squad tandems like FB/HB, WR1/WR2 or LE/RE.  Squads also come with their own set of responsibilities…

QB Squad – Responsible for play calling on Offense, audibles and Offensive Line shifts

RB Squad – Responsible for hot routing or changing the direction of the running play and sending players in motion

WR Squad – Responsible for hot routing and sending players in motion

DL Squad – Responsible for hot routing and DL Shifts

LB Squad – Responsible for play calling on Defense, audibles, hot routing, LB Shifts and spotlighting receivers

DB Squad – Responsible for hot routing and Coverage Shifts

Unlike the positional squads, the “ANY” position doesn’t have any pre-play responsibilities except for the ability to hot route whichever player you’re currently controlling.  Something else you may have noticed with regards to squad responsibilities, is that play calling is divided up between the QB and the LB squads.  This way if you’re one of those people who aren’t comfortable calling the shots on Defense, you can make the calls on Offense and let someone else call the plays on Defense.  Just like a real football team, everyone is responsible for doing their part and you’ll need to communicate with each other in order to succeed.

Speaking of communication, you and your teammates will have the ability to talk amongst yourselves using Team Chat, both during setup and in the game, as long as you all have headsets.

This section of the article was very interesting and informative. Since it was confirmed that Online Team Play would be included in Madden 11, many people have been wondering how many players would be able to compete on each team and what positions the players would be able to control. I am especially happy to see that while EA has broken up both offense and defense into three “groups” defined by position, there is an additional control option called “ANY.” This last control option will basically allow you to control any player that has is not being manually controlled by another person, regardless of the position group the player falls into.

Additionally, I believe it is very smart to assign each group pre-play responsibilities. It certainly would be hectic if every player group was allowed to control everything from audibles, hot routes, line shifts, etc. This will also promote communication between each team. Each team will need to make certain that each member is on the same and coordinate the pre-play changes between one another.

In Game:

Once you get in game, there are a number of visual aids that we provide for you to make sure that you know what you’re supposed to be doing at all times.  The first thing you’ll notice is the colored player indicator arrow above your head and the heads of your squadmates (the other players that belong to your squad).

This is a much needed feature that I am very happy EA included. Imagine trying to make a play on the ball only to have another person on your team run into you. These types of occurrences will be avoided with each human controlled player having an indicator above their player throughout the play.

Another visual aid that we provide to help you is play art.  Typically when playing a single player game, the play art will only appear when you’re walking up to the line and then later if you manually bring it up using the “Show Play Art” control.  In Online Team Play, we leave the play art on the field for you during the entire play for whichever player you’re controlling.

This feature is one that I will have to see in action before I have a final opinion on it. On one hand, it may be awkward to see your player’s assignment throughout the entire play. On the other hand, it may be necessary for a game with so many human controlled players.

Click here to view the full article on Madden 11 Online Team Play

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Madden 11 Lighting Improvements

Today, EA confirmed that Madden 11 will have significant lighting improvements. Let’s take a look at some pictures and experts from the article.

Stadiums:

One of the ways we pushed for increased broadcast integrity was in the lighting of our stadiums. Previously our night and dome stadiums were lit for maximum visibility of the crowd and thus were not consistent with typical broadcast camera exposures. In Madden 11 we attempted to better emulate how stadiums appear when the exposure is set for the action on the field. Using a variety of reference material, we attempted to closely approximate the patterns of light and shadow unique to the individual stadiums.

In real world photography, the light and dark values of a subject can vary considerably from shot to shot depending on the exposure settings. In Madden NFL we are working with one universal exposure, so it was necessary to create a unified look which works across the board, regardless of which of our hundreds of animated cameras is active. The end result is night and dome stadiums which have considerably more contrast and shape to the lighting than in previous versions of the game and tonal values for the crowd which prevent it from visually competing with the action during game play.

Check out some images that show the improved stadium light below:

From these two pictures, you should be able to notice a drastic difference between Madden 11 and Madden 10. While stadium lighting may not be a huge concern to all Madden gamers, it is nice to see EA addressing a concern that has been voiced for the past few years.  This is just another small touch that adds the realism we all crave into Madden.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Madden 11 – More Screenshots

A little late on this and some of you might have already seen these but I have been out all weekend. New screenshots for Madden 11 was released Friday, May 21st. You can check them out below.

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Madden 11 – Run Blocking

EA Sports released a blog posting talking about the run blocking AI. This is a good start considering many people as well as myself think the AI overall needs a major overhaul. They have a few short videos showing some of the adjustments that were made. Here is one below.

As we started planning out the changes to make to run blocking In Madden NFL 11, we just focused on creating the true run blocking schemes exactly as they are drawn up in real life. No reason to try and make a video-gamey version of it – it needed to be the real thing. It definitely took a lot of tuning to get the matchups right versus the many defensive fronts in football, but we have done it. The very first thing we had to do was really lay down the law. What I mean by this is that blockers had to be given realistic rules for who they are going to target depending on what type of run it is. We had to devise rules for each run blocker individually, starting from the play-side Tight End to the back-side Tight End, and all the Linemen in between. These rules also had to work in the situations where there was no Tight End, had to affect blockers in the backfield, and had to work whether you had a fullback to lead block or if you were running out of a Singleback formation. These realistic blocking matchup rules have stood the test of time in football at every level of play, from Pee Wee to professional. So we set out to implement these timeless rules into our football game. Daniel White (who from here forward I will refer to as the greatest software engineer of all time) was able to take the rules that I laid out and actually code them into the game. The result? Better overall run blocking, bigger holes for ball carriers to run through, and more realistic running lanes created by smarter offensive players. Let’s look at specific improvement made to the different runs in our game.

EA goes into some great details about some of the basic running formation. Read the Madden 11 – Run Blocking Improvements

Popularity: 47% [?]