Strategy Pad Update

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  • Point Blank
    Needs a hobby
    • Oct 2008
    • 14184

    Strategy Pad Update

    Good news to all the people that don't like the strategy pad. The old style will be added back soon.

    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.


    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!
    ..The bitching about it can stop now.
  • MvP
    a member of vsn
    • Oct 2008
    • 8227

    #2
    By the time it comes out we will all be used to the SP anyways.

    Comment

    • Nucking Futs
      Word Life
      • Jul 2010
      • 1283

      #3
      Yea, what is 3 days after the Demo release and Im already getting use to it. By the time it comes out it will prolly be way too late.

      This just shows what can happen if enough ppl bitch and moan. The Auto-Drop will prolly be altered by the first patch. Just about the same amount of ppl are bitching about that.

      o TH3 N3RD o


      Comment

      • Chadman
        I Am Willie Beamen
        • Oct 2008
        • 1048

        #4
        Originally posted by Nucking Futs
        Yea, what is 3 days after the Demo release and Im already getting use to it. By the time it comes out it will prolly be way too late.

        This just shows what can happen if enough ppl bitch and moan. The Auto-Drop will prolly be altered by the first patch. Just about the same amount of ppl are bitching about that.
        auto drop? as in the auto dropback? wtf. i love it. thats the only way i drop back in the game.

        Comment

        • j.hen
          Self Care
          • Oct 2008
          • 10058

          #5
          I've played a couple more games of the demo and am starting to get the hang of the pad. I'm kinda like it now.. lol

          Comment

          • Tengo Juego
            Posts a lot
            • Jun 2009
            • 4289

            #6
            Originally posted by Nucking Futs
            This just shows what can happen if enough ppl bitch and moan. The Auto-Drop will prolly be altered by the first patch. Just about the same amount of ppl are bitching about that.
            Auto drop back was in Madden 10. It's not going anywhere.

            Comment

            • Nucking Futs
              Word Life
              • Jul 2010
              • 1283

              #7
              Originally posted by Tengo Juego
              Auto drop back was in Madden 10. It's not going anywhere.
              I'm not saying its going anyway, but it could be adjusted to how long he holds onto it. Its alot worse than it was in 10.

              o TH3 N3RD o


              Comment

              • Minne
                Go Hawks
                • Jan 2010
                • 339

                #8
                It's good news but I am actually getting use to the strategy pad. it's not all that bad.

                Comment

                • MrBill
                  Billy Brewer Sucks Penis
                  • Feb 2009
                  • 0

                  #9
                  So EA was just using us as beta testers?

                  Comment

                  • Maynard
                    stupid ass titles
                    • Feb 2009
                    • 17876

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Point Blank
                    Good news to all the people that don't like the strategy pad. The old style will be added back soon.



                    ..The bitching about it can stop now.
                    Can i bitch about it not coming until the 1st week of the nfl season?

                    Comment

                    • BigBucs
                      Unpretentious
                      • May 2009
                      • 12758

                      #11
                      Fuck their bullshit statistics. Nobody complained about it so the change wasnt warranted. "People went into a hot route and didnt do anything" really? Maybe they canceled it or the ball was snapped. Now we have to wait 4-6 weeks after the game is released for a fix. Stupid muthafuckas. Fix shit that needs fixing. The PS2 system was fine, now that Ive gotten used to this PS3 system, which was inferior the the PS2 system, they try to change the shit again. I cant even call an offensive audible w/o fumbling over shit.




                      Comment

                      • Misogi
                        :misogi:
                        • Oct 2008
                        • 2132

                        #12
                        Sometimes I think EA has NO idea as to what the hell it is they're doing. How could they NOT see this "Strategy pad" as a problem with how long it takes to do simple things from a previous format that was built up since last-gen? Now they decide to put it back in? Honestly, I think they know this shit should've been in there, and this is their excuse for the lack of it making it into the game on an otherwise logical timetable.

                        And where the hell is my normal speed online?
                        * Chrispy logs into KGs account to see what misogi wrote* [05:53 PM]

                        Comment

                        • OnlyOneBeerLeft
                          Fuck em
                          • Oct 2008
                          • 10430

                          #13
                          yeah man... this demo was their way of making things easier to play for everybody, slow speed the game feels like a turtle race and that pad selection is hot garbage, I wont even play the demo anymore at this point. I could adjust all 11 players on defense if I had to before my opponent would snap... now I can barely get the LB's to shift and the MLB to spy

                          Comment

                          • Tengo Juego
                            Posts a lot
                            • Jun 2009
                            • 4289

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Nucking Futs
                            I'm not saying its going anyway, but it could be adjusted to how long he holds onto it. Its alot worse than it was in 10.
                            I haven't noticed any difference. It's probably just the pressure of the A.I. pass rush making it seem too long. Not to mention the difference in drops. 3 step, 1 step, 5 step. They're all different and obviously take longer.

                            Comment

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