Making a better Madden

We talked about a few changes I would like to see in Madden in order to move the brand forward in the thread "Is Madden Dying?".

One was in terms of the interaction between defenders and blockers...

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I want bigger blockers to blow up smaller defenders and move on to block another defender. I want bigger defenders to blow up smaller blockers to make big plays. What I don't want is to see the "engaged" animation for every block. I'm not asking to get rid of suction blocking. I'm asking for a system where blockers can win and lose exchanges with realistic animations to make it work. If the blocker clearly wins the exchange, the defender falls and the blocker moves to block another player. If the defender wins the exchange, lets have a few realistic animations to make it happen - and the defender gets to keep moving toward the ballcarrier, unabated by the fallen blocker.

Two was between ballcarrier and tackler...

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First of all, scrap the defensive assist. Make A (or X for Ps3) the defensive break down button. Users should hit it half as early as they would to hitstick - meaning the breakdown isn't immediate, but it does setup fast. During the breakdown, users have great control over their defensive player over a yard to a yard and a half - depending upon the player. After the breakdown, at impact - users have a few choices. They can move the L stick to a side to try to ride ballcarrier to other defenders or out of bounds. Hitting down tries to fight the ballcarrier back. Holding up uses the safe route and just rides the ballcarrier down, which is a good choice in one-on-one situations and in a mismatch. Hitting A (or X on Ps3) again wraps the legs. It's a good option if the player isn't moving at full speed. Hitting Y (or triangle on Ps3) goes up high, which is good for setting up gang tackles - to possibly go after the ball to force turnovers. Knowing the personnel is key, as you don't want to try to power tackle a big RB with a CB. You wouldn't need to use the break down button to hitstick, but you can use it to recover from a missed hitstick if the ballcarrier doesn't make space right away.

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I want a tackling system that is deeper and feels more intuitive that simply hitsticking or not. Here's the system I came up with:

Even simpler - New Tackling Controls:

Break Down Button - A
L Stick Left or Right - ride ballcarrier to a side
L Stick Down - fight ballcarrier back
L Stick Up - ride ballcarrier down
A Button again - wrap legs
Y Button - hold ballcarrier up (good for gang tackling)

These additions wouldn't be difficult to implement and would bring the game's realism and depth to new heights.

Three is between receiver and defender.

I believe that a defender's man coverage skill should be tied to how quickly he can turn and react to a ball. His awareness should be tied to his understanding of what players will do based on what they have seen in previous plays and from film. There needs to be a new skill that determines a defender's understanding of his vertical relationship with his assigned receiver - and that skill woujld be tied to the receiver's route running skill to determine how consistently the defender judges this relationship correctly. Most CBs in the NFL will start to turn and run with a receiver once the receiver gets within three yards of the defender. Some players (like Darrell Revis) can shorten that to as small a difference as two yards. Some players (like DeAngelo Hall and Aquib Talib) struggle with the consistency of this vertical relationship with the receiver and it completely destroys their ability to protect the horizontal relationship between themselves and the receiver on some plays. In other words, they get twisted up because they misjudge the relationship between themselves and their targeted recever and don't turn quickly enough - or do it too quickly - and they get twisted up in coverage. Receivers like Randy Moss generally gets a larger berth within the horizontal relationship (good CBs give him about a 4 yard berth, while I've seen others give him up to 7), while slower receivers (like Brandon Marshall, Marques Colston, and Sydney Rice) get even smaller berths from defenders - but still make plays because of their size, athleticism, and ball skills. I would like for a new skill to allow better man defenders to know when to turn and for lesser man defenders to occasionally screw it up. It would add more realism to the game and add a less random element to the passing game that would still feel fresh as it would change with the changing personnel on the field. What it would do is make speed work how it should. It would create space and take away space whenever there is a speed discrepency between a defender and a receiver, but occasionally a defender will misjudge the speed difference and will get burned. Good receivers will cause this more often and it will happen less to good defenders. It will come down to the relationship between route running and this new defensive skill statistic of how often it happens. Although it would usually result in a burnt defender, if the QB doesn't recognize it and throws a route that doesn't take advantage of the advantage - it could result in an interception or batted ball. I'll give an abridged version of it in a day or so.

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts or input will be appreciated.

I think the overall rating should be scraped cause that doesn't really seem to matter is blocking, cit, throw power, throw acc.,tackling all them stats counts also are we talking what would make madden better of more relistic cause i hate to say it but if people HAD to kick on 4th down depending on certain situations anyway i think that would make it better and more realistic just cause that's what real football does. Also scrap gameflow and strategy pad it's all a joke. Move the time back to 7 minutes and put ALL the plays back into the playbooks.

dude everything your talking about in your post was in god d@mn apf2k8 when the cfl football game comes out, and whenever 2k drops another nfl game Im getting them

stritzo wrote:

I think the overall rating should be scraped cause that doesn't really seem to matter is blocking, cit, throw power, throw acc.,tackling all them stats counts also are we talking what would make madden better of more relistic cause i hate to say it but if people HAD to kick on 4th down depending on certain situations anyway i think that would make it better and more realistic just cause that's what real football does. Also scrap gameflow and strategy pad it's all a joke. Move the time back to 7 minutes and put ALL the plays back into the playbooks.

Can't argue with anything you said.

GAV APF2k8 has no overall rating if you played it lol