Madden 18

[TCrouch]

It's that time. Not sure what the switch to Frostbite will do, but Madden 17 is already the best Madden game ever, IMO. Here's hoping they didn't do any massive physics screwups with the new engine, but there were a few tidbits mentioned that got my interest:

Madden NFL 18 features new target passing mechanic & coverage assignments. Arcade, Sim & Competitive play styles.

Sounds like you can assign a CB to shadow a WR again, which is great. Sim style may be interesting, but they released the teaser trailer this morning.



Get ready for a new season of rants and hype!

[Danimal]

I was just saying I guess I didn't see in that short teaser what Frostbyte did for the graphics. I thought 17 looked great but I didn't notice anything in that. The other things you mentions are positives however.

Also Online team play for 2-6 people.
A story mode and also play weekly match ups, not sure if that is the same thing or not.

[Rodster]

Bring back Season Mode that is all.

[dbdynsty25]

If only the Madden curse could continue.

[Danimal]

Bring back Season Mode that is all.

They did kind of, you can play your weekly team matchups with the rosters they use that day.

[TCrouch]

I was just saying I guess I didn't see in that short teaser what Frostbyte did for the graphics. I thought 17 looked great but I didn't notice anything in that. The other things you mentions are positives however.

Lighting was vastly different, which is about all I expected. The models in 17 were pretty advanced, so time of day and lighting is going to be the biggest thing.



In the Madden 18 shot at the top, the lighting is more saturated and the shadows have a much higher contrast. However, all of this is with the caveat that it's "in engine footage" and not "in game footage" (how I hate the differences they can have sometimes).

I don't think it's going to be a massive graphical overhaul, but lighting should be much different, and it appears to be from that.

[Brando70]

Madden 17 was so good, I also hope they don't screw it up This might be the first Madden I ever pre-order.

[XXXIV]

Madden 17 is already the best Madden game ever, IMO.

It was that .

I have enjoyed the hell out of it in MUT grinding.

First time ever playing Madden I feel responsible for ALLLLL of my ints thrown and not the victim of some asshole at EA and his LAZY ASS BULLSHIT CODE. Its good.

Madden 17 is the video game version of the worlds tallest midget for sure!

[TCrouch]

The build-up to this year's release is starting to reach a fever pitch. The information contained within this post has me doing double-takes trying to figure out if it's all crap, or if it's really this advanced. Since their creative director said previously that "this is the biggest year-to-year change to blocking we've ever made", it sure seems legit.

Blocking Overhaul in Madden 18

ID the Mike

One of the most common pieces of feedback we received from our community was, “If I know my opponent is blitzing, and I know who’s going to come free, give me the tools to adjust the blocking to pick it up.” Thus, ID the Mike was born.

Before explaining it, let’s first provide some context about the pass blocking system we use in Madden. While most NFL teams have a variety of different pass protection schemes, we currently take rules from all of them and have a hybrid pass protection philosophy, built primarily upon base protection rules. This scheme adapts on the fly to account for all defensive alignments, different protection adjustments, such as slide protection and play-action protection, as well as updating the rules dynamically to account for blockers being added or taken out of the protection via hot routes and audibles.

What is base protection? Base simply means the five offensive linemen will target the four-down defensive linemen plus the Mike linebacker. The Mike being the second defender off the ball from the strong side (not necessarily always the middle linebacker). When extra blockers are added, like running backs or tight ends, they will then be responsible for the Will (weak-side linebacker) and/or the Sam (strong-side linebacker). If slide protection is used, then the offensive line will shift their targeting to either the Will or Sam based on the direction chosen by the user, while the running backs (when they are in the protection) will then block the Mike.

What ID the Mike does is allow users to take this base protection and choose any defender on the field as the Mike or the fifth target of the offensive line. It’s essentially a spotlight tool that allows the player to direct pass protection to any defender on the field and treat that player as the Mike using our base protection principles.

It's an amazing read, as there finally seems to be some sort of cohesion to the OL as a unit (aggregate awareness score), as well as off-ball injuries (FINALLY!!!) where depth at OL and DL will actually matter.

[Danimal]

I'm waiting to see game play videos next week. On paper everything seems great although it seems no changes to CFM, but i still want to see it.

[TCrouch]

Well, for me, 17 was so close on so many levels--them separating Arcade, Simulation, and Competitive was really smart. If they can tune each mode to cater to that audience, it would solve a lot of legacy problems. I want real penalty counts, I want ratings to matter, and from what the "game changers" are saying (granted, they say a lot of crap every year, but still), the ratings on simulation mode MATTER.

Looking forward to gameplay, for sure, but some of the tools they're giving us this year seem right in my wheelhouse.

[Brando70]

The blocking changes sound amazing. The idea of using the AWR of the whole line and emphasizing the center changes a lot, not just for gameplay, but drafting and free agency in CFM.

[Danimal]

First game play videos are supposed to release today. Keep in mind these are from game changers who were brought down for a capture session and then had to have all of them approved by EA.

EA Access starts on the 17th I believe.

Some screen shots out today that look great at OS.

[Danimal]

Video of screen shots.

https://youtu.be/cyGzsaMjaIc

[Danimal]

Plenty of videos up now, I'm going to stop watching them however and wait for EA Access because the videos look exactly the same. The 1st one I looked at I thought was a scam and the guy was using 17 and just wanted views. I know you can say this every year but when their other games moved to the FB engine I remember being able to see a difference in game play. Short of fantastic screen shots, cut scenes and stadium shots I don't know what FB added to game play.

[Murph]

Plenty of videos up now, I'm going to stop watching them however and wait for EA Access because the videos look exactly the same. The 1st one I looked at I thought was a scam and the guy was using 17 and just wanted views. I know you can say this every year but when their other games moved to the FB engine I remember being able to see a difference in game play. Short of fantastic screen shots, cut scenes and stadium shots I don't know what FB added to game play.

My thoughts exactly. It's hard to tell the difference between 17 and these videos.

[Diablo25]

Do these videos have links? .

[TCrouch]

Yeah, all over Youtube. Just search Madden 18 Gameplay and they're everywhere.

The biggest difference in M18 is definitely the lighting. To me, it's night-and-day. Reflections off of helmets, the way light coronas bounce off of helmets, self-shadowing, etc. In normal gameplay shots, the only difference I see is lighting saturation and color looks a LOT more realistic. But the up close shots really show it off, of course. For example:



It's not even close, and I can see the same lighting differences in gameplay compared to what I've seen while playing thousands of games of M17. Also the blocking and defensive coverage has been a lot better from the videos I watched.

But really...it's football. They're not overhauling player models drastically or anything, so it's GOING to look similar from normal gameplay cameras--except for lighting.

[Danimal]

If you want a screen shot simulator, Madden 18 is a huge step forward and yes I will give you the line blocking looks improved a lot. Defense considering there are already game changers saying they nerfed the zone coverage and D-line pressure since EA Play I'm not sure what your seeing.

There logic was since Longshot is supposed to bring in new people who might not play football we don't want them throwing 36 picks. I thought that was why we had different play styles but whatever.

I watched three 5 minute games playing in simulation mode, not a single penalty in any of those games. CPU QB's still stand around waiting to get sacked, runner still juke when there is open daylight, didn't notice a single play where this new DB / WR interaction took place all I saw were the same old animations.

I liked 17 and played the hell out of it and I'm sure I'll like this game but this has to be the least excited I've been about Madden in a long time. I'm hoping once I play the game I will feel the differences but it is clear Longshot and MUT goals were the priority this year. Then after doing jack s*** to CFM they can show us how those numbers are lower and continue to support it less and less.

[Danimal]

Oh and I saw a game in broadcast cam and it looked like an actual televised game but you (well I) really can't play the game from that angle and since they refuse to put in a real coach only mode I'm not sure what good it does anyone.

[TCrouch]

Like I said--the lighting is vastly different in gameplay. I showed the screenshot because it obviously amplifies the effect. I can look at outdoor early games and see a massive difference. Indoor games? Not much, because the lighting for those was already pretty good. Night games and the 'haze lighting' in stadiums is markedly improved. But it's all lighting. Some games will look similar, and some had me actually going "wow" and rewinding some sequences.

For defense, I saw a safety jump a corner route in the end zone as soon as the ball was thrown, and I saw a slot corner come off of his drag coverage to reverse direction and pick off a hitch a couple of plays later.

The corner routes have been picked off numerous times in videos I saw, and the simple routes that the AI can't figure out how to defend in Madden 17 are getting defended or picked off routinely in the videos I watched. I saw defenders in MAN COVERAGE actually cover a crossing route. I saw a back shoulder throw actually work, and I've seen about a dozen examples of positional advantage actually being effective.

For the runners juking--you mean CPU? Almost every gameplay video I've seen is a user vs. user game, since that's what the Game Changers did.

Things that have bugged me in M17, I saw specific examples of it working in Madden 18. But that's just me, and I get that a football game will look the same every year to people unless they completely change player models, animations, or overlays. There will obviously be flaws. It's never perfect, but the flaws I really noticed last year, in only a handful of videos, I've seen different outcomes with in M18 pre-release footage. Then again, only SPECIFIC videos could be shown, from what I heard...EA had to approve them, so that's a pretty big red flag.

But it's all good with me. Also, make sure you note what mode the users are playing on when looking at videos (sounds like you already know this, but others might not). Under the "EA" logo in the upper left, it will either say "COMP" for competitive, "ARCADE" for arcade (obviously), and "SIM" for simulation mode. The only ones I pay attention to are SIM games, because that's where the ratings are what dictate the AI, rather than arcade being built for big plays and Competitive being even-teams, where stick skills are the only differentiators.

It's Madden, I'll always play it, and my greatest fear was that they'd completely muck it up with the engine change. That doesn't seem to have happened, from what I can tell so far, so if it's similar to 17 with a few tweaks and a massive lighting change, I'm fine with that. This is the last post I'll make about it, though, because I know I tend to have fun with Madden every year, and see differences (and different issues) each version, so my opinion is probably screwed up compared to most.

[Danimal]

LOL, As I said I watched three games in simulation mode and saw all of what I noted above, the statue QB's being the worst of it. Zone coverage looks to be terrible again so you'll be forced to play man all day and I saw Tannehill run down a fast DB on a pick when he had no business catching him, I thought rating mattered more in simulation mode?

Looks like you edited your post while I was typing. Look at the Charge vs Raider game that was against the cpu on simulation and frankly the best looking one.

[Danimal]

Play Now and Franchise Blog is up. Has to be the worst written blog I've ever seen but when you really did nothing to franchise you need to fill space.

https://www.easports.com/madden-nfl/new ... -franchise

[Aristo]

Good post, Terry. I feel about the same way. Once the release of videos became an issue, this reaction by most of the enthusiast community was predictable. It's the same people who didn't like th last three games, so there was little chance that this was going to appeal to them.

I didn't read a single complaint about the zones until one particular Youtuber called it out, and within an hour, everyone was talking about the broken zones. It was just too perfect of a narrative, and zero amount of tweaking and fixing by EA will change it.

The game looks like upgraded version of last year's game. MUT got some nice upgrades, blocking is improved, and target passing could a great feature. That's more than I expected. Since I'm still playing Madden 17 nearly daily, I'm more than okay with their continued direction.

So I will have it day one. May be up for a CFM again, if spots are available. But I might migrate back into playing MUT and Draft Champions most of the time.

[Danimal]

Good post, Terry. I feel about the same way. Once the release of videos became an issue, this reaction by most of the enthusiast community was predictable. It's the same people who didn't like th last three games, so there was little chance that this was going to appeal to them.

Ah the irony of this post is special. BTW what is your handle at OS?

I didn't read a single complaint about the zones until one particular Youtuber called it out, and within an hour, everyone was talking about the broken zones. It was just too perfect of a narrative, and zero amount of tweaking and fixing by EA will change it.

You realize these youtubers are game changers. the guys EA flies down all year so they can talk positive about the game, the only ones who have played the game at this point right? but yeah why take his word for it.