Number of players above 90+ OVR
Position Madden09 Madden10
QB 12 6
HB 18 10
FB 4 4
WR 25 13
TE 9 6
T 21 12
G 22 11
C 11 6
DE 26 13
DT 15 11
OLB 18 9
MLB 19 7
CB 21 9
FS 6 5
SS 10 5
K 15 7
P 5 4
As you can see, the impact has been dramatic. At almost every position, the number of 90+ players has been almost chopped in half. Most of these guys who were in the low 90’s are now in the mid 80’s. Those guys who were in the mid 80’s are now dipping into the 70’s. But keep in mind we did not artificially lower all ratings for the average players. Whatever their strengths were, remained as strengths with the new re-rating. It was their weaknesses which are highlighted more dramatically with the new rating spread in Madden NFL 10.
The big reason to “stretch the ratings” was so that star players actually felt like star players. In past versions of Madden, I think it is hard to make the argument that stars like Nnamdi Asomugha and Jared Allen really stood out apart from any other fast or athletic player. Speed was the great video game equalizer. Well not any more, not in Madden NFL 10. Ratings like Play Recognition on defense and Route Running on offense mean more than ever before – in both the gameplay and the overall rating calculations.
Take CB speed for example. I did a rating analysis on this to start out the Madden NFL 10 pre-production cycle and discovered that every CB in the game had between 87-99 SPD in Madden NFL 09. I looked further, nearly 80% of ALL CB’s fell between 4 ratings points (88-92)! It’s pretty obvious that you aren’t going to see or feel any major differences out there in gameplay with them being so similar. The range now starts at 75-99, with a far greater number of CBs now in the low to mid 80’s.
A great bi-product of stretching out the ratings was that this touched all other areas of the game. Franchise mode. Rookie draft classes. Progression. The old draft system might have had over half of the rookie WR or CB class with 90+ speed. Not anymore. Finding those 90+ SPD guys will feel much more challenging. You still have a good amount of players at the elite ends of the ratings….just not half the league anymore. It feels really balanced this year- Josh and the franchise devs did an excellent job with the “re-invention” of that mode.
I think you just made a lot of football fans extremely happy, Donny. OK now that I have the chance I'm going to take it. For the love of Pete, what does Awareness do? Please—someone--explain this mystery attribute to me and if it's important for every position.
Ian: Great question. In order to answer this best, I just did a full search in the code for the rating. Here are the areas in which AWR is used:
How quickly a defender can realize the ball is in the air to try and make a play
Chance to jump offsides or false start
Whether a defender tries to scoop-n-score or falls on a fumble in the correct situations
How quickly receivers get into “get open” mode after a route (and where they go)
Chance the WR recognizes the coverage & picks the “correct” option on an option route
How quickly OL can recognize and pick up new blitzing defenders
Chance for QB to predict a blitz and assign a hot route
When a QB will choose to tuck and run (scramble) if nothing is open
Chance a defender will try to strip the ball on a ballcarrier with bad carrying ratings
Chance a defender will attempt to get his hands up to tip a ball while engaged
There are quite a few more (mostly assigned to penalty chances), but this seemed like enough to give the general example of what it does. As you know, over the last few years we’ve added more ratings to handle the specific situations that occur most often – ratings like man coverage, zone coverage, press, release, etc. We did this so that we wouldn’t have one rating (like Awareness) that dictated so many aspects of gameplay.
What about presentation? Ian, you told me at the show that you wanted the stadiums to all feel unique. How are you doing that?
Ian: One of the most common pieces of feedback from the community (and internally from our own time playing the game) was that every Franchise game really felt the same. There was no real sense of a “journey” through the season since every game was presented in a similar fashion. Since we had committed to a huge investment in re-vamping our cut-scenes (and their respective systems), Mike Young, Tavis Kahler, and crew did a bunch of research to pick out some of the most recognizable pieces that you see in various stadiums around the league.
This addition alone in pre-game (and cuts to these types of scenes throughout the game) was a nice way for us to give you (the fan) the feel of each stadium and location being different. We realize that many people skip through pre-game cut-scenes once they see them a few times, so by making every intro feel different it gave people a reason to at least give a second look and keep the game feeling new and fresh.
The most exciting thing for me is that we will be able to keep building on this for the future, since a huge chunk of our time this year was spent actually just getting the tech in place. Expect community polls and wishlist threads soon. (smile)
One of the key details we had to implement in all of these fan scenes was some extra logic for the fans to pick jerseys of the current star players to wear. This really helps keep you immersed in your Franchise, regardless of what year it is, to see your fans out there wearing the jersey of your new star player that you drafted in 2012.
To add to this, we have all kinds of stadium-specific chants in the game as well – so now you’ll hear the chants that make you feel like you really are in that hostile opposing environment – such as “J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!” and “E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!”
A fan gets her picture taken in front of the Bronco Statue (Invesco Field at Mile High.)
The big E3 announcement was Online Franchise mode. I know that NCAA Football’s Online Dynasty mode was a big success and that a lot of fans are eagerly anticipating playing in a league. Can you tell us a bit more about this feature -- is it a true league with divisions, Wild Card playoffs, rounds, etc? How are drafts held? Live? Simmed?
Donny: Here’s the lowdown: 10 full seasons. 32 teams. 8 divisions. 2 conferences. Real NFL schedule starting in Week 1 of the regular season. 17 week regular season. Each team has a BYE week. 6 teams make the NFL Playoffs in each conference. Wild Card Week, Divisional Playoffs, Conference Championships, Super Bowl. Advance to off-season.
We have player progression and regression – players get better…and get older. Players retire. We have full multi week, end-of-season, and career ending injuries. Same injury decisions you make in-game in offline franchise, you also make them here in online franchise too. They play a huge role, let me tell you. In the 23 man online franchise we are in at work currently (I am Atlanta), I just had John Abraham go out for 6 weeks with partial shoulder tear. Safe to say, I have zero pass rush now (but I am 8-2 in week 11!).
We have unbalanced and multiple player trades. Meaning, you can do 2 for 1, 3 for 2, or 3 for 3 if you want….and anything in between. We do not have CPU logic analyzing trades this year, so we default the online franchise to Trades On (With no CPU). This way, you can trade with all human owners, but the CPU teams are off-limits. You can also play with Trades On, but CPU teams will process all trades that are offered up.
We have NFL Drafts every year. Live Online NFL Drafts. Console and PC both connected- so you can participate from either! Chat rooms. VOIP for Xbox Live. 7 rounds. If you cannot attend the draft, we let you set up your pre-ranking draft board per position and by overall, and the draft board will draft based on your pre-rankings. Hand crafted Head Coach classes along with some new Madden NFL 10 rookies Josh and I created over the last 2 years. We also have Edit Jersey Number for your players (in case you don’t like the rookie numbers Josh gives you!). The commish can edit the entire league’s jersey numbers (for CPU teams who get rookie numbers they don’t like).
If you don’t want to start with real NFL team rosters as we head into the 2009 NFL season…you don’t have to. You can also start your online franchise out with a 54 round Fantasy Draft. All players in the NFL are eligible to be drafted. This is the perfect setup for the super competitive online franchise that will be starting up everywhere on August 14th. Great league balancer.
Fantasy Drafts are serpentine like fantasy drafts (i.e. snake draft – where if you pick last in 1st round, you pick first in 2nd round). So many ways to draft a team, so many draft strategies around how to build an NFL franchise. Well, here is the ultimate shot, and now you can back it up with your Madden game! A sidenote here to folks who think a 54 round draft with 32 teams would take forever, couple things. First, we give the commish the ability to set the time per round. Second, CPU teams pretty much quick-fire-pick after 2-3 seconds. Third, we give the commish the ability to pause the draft. So if you wanted to split your drafts into a Day One and Day Two, you have that option because the commish can pause the draft at anytime, and pick it back up at any other point.
As far as free agency goes, we have a free agent wire. So you can release players and pick up free agents on a first come, first served basis. We do not have an off-season free agency or salary cap this year, but it is something that is the top of our list obviously to get put into the game. That being said, we do have a web-exclusive Commish Add/Drop Tool that allows you and your online franchise buddies the ability to stage an offline free agency with whatever house rules you want to. At the office, we did one where we made everyone give up five 75+ OVR players (including CPU teams). Then, we had a quick free agency draft and we were off to Year 2. Rosters are on lockdown during this stage of the offseason (where the Commish can Add/Drop), so nobody can cheat the system (yet).
