VSN Radio - Interview w/ EA Madden 25's Ratings Czar Donny Moore

[JayDizzle]

Click Here For The EXCLUSIVE VSN RADIO INTERVIEW w/ EA's Madden 25's Ratings Czar Donny Moore

VSN Radio's Jay and 2-2-0 head MrBill sit down to interview the self-proclaimed "Heisenczar" himself, EA's Donny Moore.

For the next 40 minutes or so, we encourage listeners who are HUGE fans for both the Madden NFL franchise and the National Football League to hear the ins-and-outs of this year's game.

Specifics such as what goes into rating your favorite players, why some ratings may be missing and even talk of going from Current Gen to Next Gen this year includes are mentioned.

So if you can't wait another minute for more Madden, VSN Radio has you covered!

Click Here For The EXCLUSIVE VSN RADIO INTERVIEW w/ EA's Madden 25's Ratings Czar Donny Moore
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Special thanks goes out to Donny Moore and his team for taking the time to speak with us today.

Mr. Moore's Twitter Handle: @Donny_Moore

EA's Madden Twitter Handle: @EAMaddenNFL

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[JayDizzle]

Thank you to everyone that gave us questions to ask Mr. Moore.

Taters Gonna Tate, indeed.

 

[Epidemik]

Good Interview :yep:

 

[Champ]

Not gonna listen. Anything useful?

 

[Atlas]

jesus, thank you bomber for the new intro... listening as we speak right meow...

 

[CCBrink]

Not gonna listen. Anything useful?

Mainly for those that play in leagues.

 

[x0xHumblex0x]

interesting..........good job

 

[MrBill]

I think we got some really good information on how to best spend XP for Connected Franchise owners.

 

[Playmakers]

Good Job Bill and Jay with the questions.

But to be honest with you I'm startting to think all Donny does is assign the ratings but he doesn't truly know exactly how the ratings IMPACT players during actual gameplay.

For example the Return rating doesn't do a darn thing I could rate someone a 99 in Return and it's only really used to signify what player the CPU should set the depth chart around for kick returns.

Donny spoke about the Footwork ratings that were removed and said they were focusing just on the run and pass block rating. Well in order to seperate OL to make them play and react different the footwork ratings along with Awareness + Player Strength was more important than the actual Pass Block and Run Block ratings themselves in terms of getting realistic blocking.

Those ratings would lead to more cut blocks down the field by WR's looking to block bigger defenders......

He also mentioned Catch In Traffic but I'm shocked Donny does even know or failed to mention that the Carry rating also is tied into this rating when player is hit by defender while trying to make a Catch IN Traffic. Yes you have the actual Catch In Traffic rating but the reason why they cough up the ball if hit hard in traffic is directly tie to their carry rating. That is their ability to hold on to the pass not the CIT Rating.....The CIT Rating is more of a ratings boost/modifier to the overall rating of the WR or TE

He kinda side stepped the special teams questions like saying most people wouldn't want to see bad snaps in a game.....Hello Donny when you say most people do you mean guys who just play the game for fun or TRUE SIM style players?????

He said bad snaps don't happen often then he referenced it to a game by the 49ers and Packers years ago I think....but bad snaps happen all the time around the league. Long Snappers make mistakes even when it doesn't lead to a missed FG or Blocked punt you see Holders changing their mechanics to catch a bad snap every week or punters adjusting to a bad snap all the time.

This isn't a rare thing that happens like Donny mentioned. The Cowboys lost a playoff game to Seattle a few years ago because of a bad snap.....

Maybe Donny missed that game and could only think of one game he's seen years ago to justify the rating not being of importance.

Well I stop now because there are so many things about this game and NCAA Football that ratings effect and the reality is EA just slaps a number on the players to give them a overall rating that appeases fans.

But they don't really test play to see how those ratings effect gameplay on the field. I had this issue with the NBA Live Team and I had to basically explain to them how their own ratings worked on the court. They were using rating that were being recycled all the way back Live 06 despite the fact they added like 20 new ratings to the game. It wasn't until Live 10 or 11 when they started adjusting their ratings after I had the Radio Interview with The Czar from OS and Marcus EA's old ratings guy. Once he understood how the ratings worked in actual gameplay Live turned into a decent playing basketball game their last two years of existence

Ok enough of my rantings I'll return back to my dungen over at the slider boards....this is a topic that always gets my blood boiling because I just don't understand why EA doesn't have actual slider or ratings testers on their staff. Sorry for venting and hijacking you thread MrBill.

 

[JayDizzle]

To be honest, I'm glad we had a good amount of questions that Donny could answer.

While the guy affects how the game mechanics work with his stat tweaks and the like, you gotta talk to one of the staff putting down code for these games.

It's gonna sell like hotcakes regardless (moreso since when the Holidays hit, a lot of people will double-dip for Madden when the new consoles come out) but here's hoping they fixed a lot of stuff from the demo.

Hell, I think Donny mentioned (or at least Bill asked about) the invisible team glitch being patched out.

 

[Playmakers]

Yes I agree the game is going to sale regardless.....The game code is screwed up to a certain point so your right we can't blame Donny since that's beyond his control. I will say this though I've often spoken with the guy from FBG ratings and showed him gameplay of NCAA utilizing his designed ratings and to be honest with you guys his ratings work a lot better in both Madden and NCAA than EA's default ratings work. So it might be the code EA is using that makes some irrelevant but I've seen from my own eyes when using FGB Ratings at times that realistic gameplay is still possible even with the current code being used EA. I know the guy from FGB spoke of contacting EA about the ratings a few years ago not sure what happened with his interview but it's evident as you can go to just about any sports game forum around the net now days and more guys are starting to take matters into their own hand by fixing EA's ratings to IMPACT the gameplay more in both Madden and NCAA. That should tell EA that something is wrong with their default ratings APPROACH!........but I understand we are just a small percentage of gamers and the money EA makes comes from the casual gamer who doesn't really get into all the under the hood stuff that some of us speak about with ratings......and again gentleman ratings aside that was a good interview. I didn't realize you guys had that kind of contact and I hope when NBA Live makes it return to the consoles you guys can create another thread before hand so we can ask questions to the developers. I have a bone to pick with those guys who killed my favorite sports series of all time LOL!

 

[MrBill]

I have already been in contact with my contacts at EA and they said they would be happy to set up some podcast interviews in late September/early October when they have some things approved to talk about publicly.