Ian Cummings confirms patch for Madden 11

by Ian Cummings 08/21/10 10:41 AM
First off, you may or may not have noticed some news that was recently propped to your consoles regarding online quitters. The number one issue that we heard loud and clear out of the community was that rampant quitting had become a major problem in the online experience, both in ranked games and Madden Ultimate Team games. Well we were able to work on this over the last week and then deploy some quick fixes to the server to help deter this practice. The fixes were as follows:

1. Any quitter / disconnecter in a ranked game will automatically be given a loss. The victim will automatically be given a win.

2. We are currently monitoring the leaderboards and planning on zero’ing out the stats of any accounts found to be using quitting tactics (via high DNF / win percentages and game logs). This monitoring will be standard practice moving forward as well, as we have built in notifications to our server team that will automatically zero out any folks caught “boosting”, or using one account to quit immediately and award a win.

3. In a Madden Ultimate Team game, a person quitting will have a game burned off of his contracts for the players in the game to discourage this practice. The victim will always receive coins, prorated based on the percentage complete of the game (i.e. if it’s the 1st quarter, he’ll only get ¼ of the coins he would have gotten if he were to finish, if it’s at the end of the game, he’ll get ~90%, etc). The same note applies as above on anyone caught “boosting” after this fix is rolled out – they will be punished with bans, contract removals, or any other tactics we see fit.

4. We also found an issue where PDLC OTP boosts were being subtracted incorrectly. Anyone that had this happen has had their boost coin purchase refunded.

One thing I should note is that there is a bit of a trade-off with stats with the auto-loss / auto-win implementation. Since we wanted to roll this out as quickly as possible, there is one thing to be aware of in that average stats will take a hit when a quit occurs. What I mean by this is that if you have played 3 games and are averaging 100 rush yards per game, if a quit occurs, your rush average will drop down to 75 since you have a 4th game with zero stats. We will look into addressing this down the line but we wanted to get the fix out for the quitters as soon as possible.

Moving forward, we are working on addressing some of the most common feedback in upcoming title updates. You all already know that we are planning on releasing an update to enable old-school pre-play controls right around the start of the NFL season, which also will include the brand new Madden Moments LIVE feature where you can replay the top games from each week. In that update we will also have numerous art, gameplay, and stability fixes included as well. Along with that, we have also planned a second update to come towards the end of September. Below is a list of the top priority issues we seem to be hearing the most about that we are looking at:

- Fixing a bug to allow friend invites to ranked games

- Generally making pass defense more effective

- Reducing number of broken tackles

- Fixing user blitz exploit(s)

- Tuning injuries

- Tuning CPU & GameFlow play-calling logic

- Improving play action blocking

- Improving kick return blocking

- Improving online connectivity issues with kick meter lag, media streaming, etc.

- Random stability improvements

Hopefully this should give you a glimpse of our current priorities and our continued commitment to keeping Madden NFL 11 relevant and giving you an enjoyable experience over the entire year. We continue to listen for any and all top issues, and the list above is by no means all inclusive or locked so feel free to drop by the EA Forums to provide any feedback on things you want fixed.

Lastly, thanks to all of you for buying and playing Madden NFL 11…see you on the gridiron!

Sweet - seems like they are addressing most of the issues I have been having.

if they fix pass coverage and the spy blitz- this game will be a GREAT game.

and just a pipe dream here...FIX THE AUTO DROP BACK! BAHHHH

Kudos to Ian for "manning" up and recognizing the community was upset with the game and addressing these issues.

I'm with you Gibbs pass coverage is by far my biggest complaint!

Looking forward to a great season!

mg

sgibs7 wrote:

if they fix pass coverage and the spy blitz- this game will be a GREAT game.

and just a pipe dream here...FIX THE AUTO DROP BACK! BAHHHH

^^^^..yea what he said ..o yeah, Gibs..when can we play? you seem to be busy whenever you're online

sounds great

if they fix pass defense the game will be twice as good as it is now

I would rather them fix the pass defense than worry about the spy blitz, I feel now that people know about it most people know how to beat it.

going to be a really good update im happy

everyone
should message them and tel them to fix the auto drop back i cant stand it i cantfind one play where is doesnt have it ahhhh FML

with the autodrop being so bad in Shotgun plays this year I have found that undercenter passing is working better. If you are there Irish I want you to know that I am running a full undercenter offense right now and the only time i go into shotgun is at end of half or game. I can quick pass faster out of UC and the running threat is there to keep the defense off balance as well. I really think UC is making a comeback.

is the patch already in?




Thanks,



haseo15

no I heard it is coming out on the week of the nfl season

ok, i just saw one of the tips when i was playing and the headline was "We made changes with a server update or something like that. So was just wondering.



Thanks,




haseo15

Patched Pass D and broken tackles plus the optional strategy pad and auto losses for quitters...


HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol, haha

Seperating the men from the boys now

wandeezy623 wrote:

with the autodrop being so bad in Shotgun plays this year I have found that undercenter passing is working better. If you are there Irish I want you to know that I am running a full undercenter offense right now and the only time i go into shotgun is at end of half or game. I can quick pass faster out of UC and the running threat is there to keep the defense off balance as well. I really think UC is making a comeback.

now that nano blitzing is dead and gone

thank god @ playaction blocking fix.

i think the should bring back run and pass commit

I always found that useless, I would press run commit, but then it would be a play action and i'm screwed

haha, ezek thats a you problem! I love to pass commit and avoid the PA for sacks. Run commit never really got it going for me.

Dammit, I never tried pass commit, what difference would it make??

on PA, your LB skips the RB and goes straight to QB. 08, 3 lineman contain nano with pass commit (found later) worked extra well.

ok then, thanks for the info