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Madden 21 next-gen overhaul

The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,228
Glad we're finally seeing something. Game is coming out in a matter of weeks so I assumed we'd see more by now.

They had also talked about a major Franchise mode update sometime thie winter because, as you may know, Franchise mode was a complete 100% copy paste from Madden 20. (Edit, apparently one of those updates came out a week ago but it is not a major change... tweak how development traits regress over time, the next update isn't due until January, which the NFL season is pretty much over by then)

Trailer begins with "Welcome to the most realistic NFL simulation ever." Yeah, I don't believe you Madden. But I'll give it a chance. A lot of the work seem to be based off of RFID tags that players wear on their uniforms, and it sounds as though this means that they had to rebuild a lot of the game for nextgen because that's just obviously not how previous Madden's worked. I'm jsut skeptical, especially because even in this super-cut of super-close in replays you can see the same animations that have been in Madden for almost 10 years.

"Madden 21 for next gen provides realistic and smooth simulation gameplay based on actual NFL data."

They're talking my language, but I just don't really believe it.

"New intuitive playcalling system," which looks like a new UI over existing features. They talk about a new playcalling mode based around specific players, which is something that Madden used to have and it was ... not really a feature. MOstly looks like just a new UI over the existing play calling system, which means that the 2020 Patriots will still have the same playcall tendencies of the 2007 Randy Moss Patriots, but w/e, I've given up expecting anything else.

I'll give it a shot. Looking forward to more impressions from people who play the game.

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"I think the biggest thing is that we're giving you the most simulation-football experience we can imagine right now," Graddy added, "because it's based off real-world data."
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I... just don't believe them. Madden hasn't really even played like simulation football in 15 years, or even really aspired to play like simulation football. There's so much more to simulating football than saying "Dalvin Cook has a top speed of 13.4 miles per hour based on his next gen stats, so he'll run 13.4mph in Madden." This is why fans have always thought the "NextGen Stats" thing was so gimmicky when the NFL presents it.

I'm glad they're not just treating it like Madden '25, the game that released on 360/PS3 + X1/PS4, and was basically the same game but with better visuals and some slight gameplay differences.
 
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TripleBee

TripleBee

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,753
Vancouver
Generous

Physical discs purchasers will need to contact EA at help.ea.com to obtain an upgrade code for the discless consoles.
 
JEH

JEH

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,274
every year they talk about the animations and they still look like shit.
 
digitalrelic

digitalrelic

Weight Loss Champion 2018: Biggest Change
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,124
Why would you release a next-gen trailer and upload it as a 1080p/30fps video?

Other than that, looks pretty good though.
 
Eeyore

Eeyore

User requested ban
Banned
Dec 13, 2019
9,029
Bacon said:
I wonder if these updates will be applied to the PC version as well
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EA doesn't care about the PC versions of their games as there isn't a major amount of people that play them comparably. The hacks on the FIFA version would be hilarious if they didn't make it so terrible.
 
MrBob

MrBob

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,671
So they needed new consoles for next gen stats data shown on screen and superstar player selection? I'll believe the additional gameplay improvements when I see it in action. Main interest for me here is if dual sense support is cool or not.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,228
dipship31 said:
Still not as nice as this:

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Awful trailer. That trailer alone set the series back by 3 or 4 years, as they tried to replicate features from the trailer that shouldn't be in a videogame.

Sign My Guestbook! said:
man that trailer was so full of shit lol

wonder if it was a Killzone 2 situation where it was a mockup that someone decided to release to the public as footage.
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They were under a lot of pressure to wow the audience at E3 2006 in Microsoft's reveal, and so they had a production company put together this cinematic-style trailer, which was supposed to be like a ... level-set for the development team, like "this is the direction we'd like to go..." but then with nothing to show at E3, they just unveiled it to the public which set the impression that's what the game would look like. The development teams were shocked because that's not how Madden was going to look, play, behave, or be anything close to, and then they had about 2-3 months to try to implement features from the trailer into the game, and Madden '06 was a fucking disaster because of it. Took them years to dig out from those mistakes. Even by like Madden 2011 you still had some of the DNA from that trailer in Madden.

Rolling Stone had this deep dive on the Madden '06 debacle, a long interview with Ian Cummings the director of the series... but... the article is gone. Looks like Rolling Stone's videogame coverage got moved over to Variety, and Variety doesn't have an archive of it. Damn.

All I can find of the article are some quotes preserved on gaming forums about it:

Madden 06 Xbox 360 made its debut to the public at E3 2005, in mid-May. Although scheduled for release in November, the first glimpse came in the form of a pre-rendered video starring cover athlete Philadelphia Eagles QB Donovan McNabb. Helmet reflections, facial animation, and other special effects added glitz. Fans questioned the authenticity of the trailer and whether Madden on Xbox 360 would look as presented. In reality, that trailer wasn't meant for the public.

"That sizzle video was meant to show all of us artists and programmers and artists what we were trying to shoot for. Then some genius decided to release that to the public," says Gourlay.
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The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,228
Lunchbox said:
Are there gonna be any new modes?
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No, it will be mostly what you got with Madden '21 for X1/PS4. They've released some updates since the game launched, but it's still generally Exhibition, last year's franchise mode, MAdden Ultimate Team, and 'The Yard' the arcade-style 7 on 7 competitive mode.

They released a small update for Franchise mode last week, and have another one scheduled for January, but generally, franchise mode is the same mode as Madden 20, which is mostly the same mode as '19... '18... '17.... et.c

Mahonay said:
Looks like a substantial visual upgrade for once
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Don't hold your breath.

Madden always looks great in the trailers and then looks like Madden when you're actually playing it. Doesn't mean it looks bad, but it's a game that looks much much better in the cinematic replays than it does in the on-field gameplay even though it's the same engine, same rendering, etc. To me, Madden has looked pretty good in replay mode for years, but when you're playing on the field it's mostly the same as it's always been... Looks fine, but doesn't wow you like NBA 2K does wheneevr there's a new version. I think it's the nature of the sport too. In NBA 2K you can afford to play with a closer in camera in most circumstances so you can see more detail, and the NBA is a more personal sport so close-ups on faces and expressions go a long way.
 
HamSandwich

HamSandwich

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,605
I don't believe it, Madden has been plagued with the same issues for years and I don't think that will be fixed with this iteration.
 
Mahonay

Mahonay

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,332
Pencils Vania
The Albatross said:
Don't hold your breath.

Madden always looks great in the trailers and then looks like Madden when you're actually playing it. Doesn't mean it looks bad, but it's a game that looks much much better in the cinematic replays than it does in the on-field gameplay even though it's the same engine, same rendering, etc. To me, Madden has looked pretty good in replay mode for years, but when you're playing on the field it's mostly the same as it's always been... Looks fine, but doesn't wow you like NBA 2K does wheneevr there's a new version. I think it's the nature of the sport too. In NBA 2K you can afford to play with a closer in camera in most circumstances so you can see more detail, and the NBA is a more personal sport so close-ups on faces and expressions go a long way.
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This is true.
 
AgonyRon

AgonyRon

Member
Nov 27, 2017
691
Im always confused on why they use so many shots in stead of just showing us gameplay. EA does this every year with FIFA and I never see anything that will be on my tv, since cutscenes are not the same as freaking gameplay.

Maybe I'm just getting old! Other than that, i'm sure it will look better than on last gen and I understand that the real difference can only be seen on your own tv.
 
platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
Member
Oct 30, 2017
36,075
The Albatross said:
Glad we're finally seeing something. Game is coming out in a matter of weeks so I assumed we'd see more by now.

They had also talked about a major Franchise mode update sometime thie winter because, as you may know, Franchise mode was a complete 100% copy paste from Madden 20. (Edit, apparently one of those updates came out a week ago but it is not a major change... tweak how development traits regress over time, the next update isn't due until January, which the NFL season is pretty much over by then)

Trailer begins with "Welcome to the most realistic NFL simulation ever." Yeah, I don't believe you Madden. But I'll give it a chance. A lot of the work seem to be based off of RFID tags that players wear on their uniforms, and it sounds as though this means that they had to rebuild a lot of the game for nextgen because that's just obviously not how previous Madden's worked. I'm jsut skeptical, especially because even in this super-cut of super-close in replays you can see the same animations that have been in Madden for almost 10 years.

"Madden 21 for next gen provides realistic and smooth simulation gameplay based on actual NFL data."

They're talking my language, but I just don't really believe it.

"New intuitive playcalling system," which looks like a new UI over existing features. They talk about a new playcalling mode based around specific players, which is something that Madden used to have and it was ... not really a feature. MOstly looks like just a new UI over the existing play calling system, which means that the 2020 Patriots will still have the same playcall tendencies of the 2007 Randy Moss Patriots, but w/e, I've given up expecting anything else.

I'll give it a shot. Looking forward to more impressions from people who play the game.

0mHIUF.png




I... just don't believe them. Madden hasn't really even played like simulation football in 15 years, or even really aspired to play like simulation football. There's so much more to simulating football than saying "Dalvin Cook has a top speed of 13.4 miles per hour based on his next gen stats, so he'll run 13.4mph in Madden." This is why fans have always thought the "NextGen Stats" thing was so gimmicky when the NFL presents it.

I'm glad they're not just treating it like Madden '25, the game that released on 360/PS3 + X1/PS4, and was basically the same game but with better visuals and some slight gameplay differences.
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Yeah im willing to try but def need to put up or shut up. But good sign its not a Madden 25 deal. The player movement data sounds very very interesting I mean they could pretty much calculate all of their movements etc and use the CPUs to do a lot of that physics work. Also a telling thing is that this isnt coming to PC.
 
Blent

Blent

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,294
East Midlands, England, UK
"Star defenders will take unique angles to the ballcarrier"

What does that even mean?

Khalil Mack still has the same 360 degrees available to him as the garbage Cowboys defence have
 
Lionheart

Lionheart

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,854
Fix the animations you cowards. I'll never play Madden until the feel of the characters changes. Its been 15 years it shouldn't feel like you are guiding a sail boat when running.
 
JEH

JEH

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,274
Madden 25 is still the GOAT because they gave NFL Sunday ticket with the ultimate edition for $100.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,228
platocplx said:
Yeah im willing to try but def need to put up or shut up. But good sign its not a Madden 25 deal. The player movement data sounds very very interesting I mean they could pretty much calculate all of their movements etc and use the CPUs to do a lot of that physics work. Also a telling thing is that this isnt coming to PC.
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Yeah, I just don't believe any of it. I believe that they'll tweak things like player speed, accelleration, cuts, etc., based on the 'next gen stats' data... so like maybe Dalvin Cook will really run 13.4mph in the open field, while Christian McCaffrey runs 11.8mph, or something... But I seriously doubt they rebuilt the locomotion system from the ground up in 6 months, and this is the first they've talked about it.

To me, my hunch is that they've heard all of the complaints over the years about how Madden is not a simulation of NFL football and as the sole license holder of NFL *simulation* videogames, they're under pressure to try to spin how Madden 21 is the most sim game ever ..... and they're just going to use the gimmicky 'next gen stats' as that justification.

"Sure, it's the same non-simulation football videogame since 2014.......... but we have next gen stats UI in the replays and no other football game has ever had that before, so it's the most sim football game ever."
 
samred

samred

Amico fun conversationalist
Member
Nov 4, 2017
2,600
Seattle, WA
JEH said:
every year they talk about the animations
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Lionheart said:
Fix the animations
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Bad news: We as members of the press still haven't gotten to go hands on with this or see the changes in the form of how it looks in extended gameplay.

Good news: A presentation from a few days ago showed how Madden is taking a mix of RFID-tracked players on the field and high-up camera angles to change average running/movement routes on a given play, using exact acceleration/velocity data from real-life plays. In isolation as a demo of a single route, it was interesting. We saw one wide receiver jump off the line at a slightly lower speed than in standard Madden, then accelerate higher than in standard Madden, with a gentler running curve.

How exactly that isolated demo and their continued promises of "improved animations" play out on the virtual field on next-gen consoles... remains to be seen.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,228
AgonyRon said:
Im always confused on why they use so many shots in stead of just showing us gameplay. EA does this every year with FIFA and I never see anything that will be on my tv, since cutscenes are not the same as freaking gameplay.

Maybe I'm just getting old! Other than that, i'm sure it will look better than on last gen and I understand that the real difference can only be seen on your own tv.
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It's because gameplay is basically the same every year. People who have played the games for a majority of their lives, which I'm sad to say I'm one of them, recognize animations from a decade ago in these games... or at least, like, the DNA of animations from multiple generations ago.
 
platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
Member
Oct 30, 2017
36,075
The Albatross said:
Yeah, I just don't believe any of it. I believe that they'll tweak things like player speed, accelleration, cuts, etc., based on the 'next gen stats' data... so like maybe Dalvin Cook will really run 13.4mph in the open field, while Christian McCaffrey runs 11.8mph, or something... But I seriously doubt they rebuilt the locomotion system from the ground up in 6 months, and this is the first they've talked about it.

To me, my hunch is that they've heard all of the complaints over the years about how Madden is not a simulation of NFL football and as the sole license holder of NFL *simulation* videogames, they're under pressure to try to spin how Madden 21 is the most sim game ever ..... and they're just going to use the gimmicky 'next gen stats' as that justification.
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Yeah I agree, I cant trust them as far as I can throw a madden disk lol. Madden 25 still makes me mad, I watch an old capture of it and looking at it compared to today its like they pretty much ported a PS3 game over lol.
However its interesting of how delayed this launch was so maybe The did extra work they seem to make it seem speed and acceleration matches up better which has been one biggest gripe with the game some years Safeties can go sideline to sideline other years they are slow as shit no nice middle and where some safeties etc are exceptional while others really aren't anything that special which helps with some balance in the game. however I do think Maybe. Just maybe if not fully this year that now with the beefy CPUs they can do a lot better player collision and physics with the game
 
platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
Member
Oct 30, 2017
36,075
samred said:
Bad news: We as members of the press still haven't gotten to go hands on with this or see the changes in the form of how it looks in extended gameplay.

Good news: A presentation from a few days ago showed how Madden is taking a mix of RFID-tracked players on the field and high-up camera angles to change average running/movement routes on a given play, using exact acceleration/velocity data from real-life plays. In isolation as a demo of a single route, it was interesting. We saw one wide receiver jump off the line at a slightly lower speed than in standard Madden, then accelerate higher than in standard Madden, with a gentler running curve.

How exactly that isolated demo and their continued promises of "improved animations" play out on the virtual field on next-gen consoles... remains to be seen.
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Interesting stuff, in isolation that does sound better, a lot less of players all being pretty much a linear level of ability to something way more granular Would be a good thing. But def need to see way more.
 
sonnyboy

sonnyboy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,271
God... I want to be excited. I want to believe but I know better. I'll wait for reviews and hopefully reviewers hold them accountable if it's another lackluster offering. Start ranking these games 4/10, like they deserve to be (bitter NFL fan)

New cloth animation tech dynamically updates the jersey wrinkles based on player movement improving player silhouettes and making player bodies feel more organic and live.
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It must be subtle, I didn't really notice in the trailer. That's a welcome addition.
 
est1992

est1992

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,218
None of these changes are going to affect the moment to moment gameplay of Madden, which is where it needs overhaul the most.

It's the same old animation changes talk.
 
Kenstar

Kenstar

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,887
Earth
The Albatross said:
Awful trailer. That trailer alone set the series back by 3 or 4 years, as they tried to replicate features from the trailer that shouldn't be in a videogame.




They were under a lot of pressure to wow the audience at E3 2006 in Microsoft's reveal, and so they had a production company put together this cinematic-style trailer, which was supposed to be like a ... level-set for the development team, like "this is the direction we'd like to go..." but then with nothing to show at E3, they just unveiled it to the public which set the impression that's what the game would look like. The development teams were shocked because that's not how Madden was going to look, play, behave, or be anything close to, and then they had about 2-3 months to try to implement features from the trailer into the game, and Madden '06 was a fucking disaster because of it. Took them years to dig out from those mistakes. Even by like Madden 2011 you still had some of the DNA from that trailer in Madden.

Rolling Stone had this deep dive on the Madden '06 debacle, a long interview with Ian Cummings the director of the series... but... the article is gone. Looks like Rolling Stone's videogame coverage got moved over to Variety, and Variety doesn't have an archive of it. Damn.

All I can find of the article are some quotes preserved on gaming forums about it:
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It's archived on wayback machine
web.archive.org

'We're Totally F--ked': Inside The Making of 'Madden NFL 06'

Inside the slow, painful death of Madden 06
web.archive.org web.archive.org
 
sonnyboy

sonnyboy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,271
Robert Kollar said:
So where does that leave us with EA Sports and its NFL series, Madden NFL Football? That's a great question, and thankfully I was able to sit down with EA's own executive producer Seann Graddy, lead producer Connor Dougan, and lead developer Clint Oldenburg.

www.operationsports.com

Next-Gen Madden 21 Preview - Will It Be Worth the Wait?

Our Madden 21 next-gen preview is now live. We run through all the areas that were presented to us by EA at the next-gen preview event.
www.operationsports.com www.operationsports.com
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I always wonder how honest the feedback is. I imagine that a level of professional decorum has to be maintained and that you can't outright tell them that previous iterations (decade) was largely trash. They have to know, right?
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,228
Kenstar said:
It's archived on wayback machine
web.archive.org

'We're Totally F--ked': Inside The Making of 'Madden NFL 06'

Inside the slow, painful death of Madden 06
web.archive.org web.archive.org
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Nice, thank you! It's a great interview & article:

HEre's the segments from that '06 article:

"That was a visual target that one of our art directors put together internally. It got some of the executive team excited about what it could be that they felt like they needed to show something at E3 for marketing reasons. ...I guess in today's day in age, it would have the 'Not actual gameplay' tag on the bottom," says Strauser.

"That sizzle video was meant to show all of us artists and programmers and artists what we were trying to shoot for. Then some genius decided to release that to the public," says Gourlay.

Behind closed doors, the developers showed a small kicking demo and a visual display with then Seattle Seahawk Shaun Alexander. "We get this kicking demo working and I shit you not, the Friday before E3, we get a call from an exec up at EA and they go this demo isn't going to work and E3 is on Tuesday," remembers Moye. "We sent everyone home except for a skeleton group of us. From that Friday until Tuesday, I did not go home. People are sleeping under desks, on couches, just getting any sort of sleep that you could. Basically, we just had to write a script for it and what we ended up with was a bunch of pre-canned animations. We had Shaun Alexander running through the stadium and showing facial animations. That was the demo."

"E3 was the first 'Oh my god, we're totally fucked.' Everyone's expectation is that we'll have a fully running game and it'll be a brand new Madden and it will look just like that trailer did. We were stuck with one character standing in the middle of the stadium. That's all we could get," says Cummings. He continues, "It was just a total wreck. The last two weeks of E3, I was sleeping at the office, watching the sun come up everyday. Then we ended up cutting all that work."

Not long after E3, in a Burger King tie-in, a video of a pre-release edition of Madden made it onto the internet. "This was well before we worked out all of the rendering issues," says Gourlay. Comparisons to the pre-rendered video were immortalized in a Penny Arcade comic, coining the term "bullshot."

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