Madden 10 - Will they prove us wrong?

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:15 pm

Bears beat Steelers in Superbowl 20-17 on last second field goal.

In a madden game similar to a game that just occurred the Bears edged the Steelers to bring me the trophy. With 42 seconds left the Steelers attempted a 46 yard field goal and missed it wide left.

Having no timeouts left I decided to chuck one to Devin Hester and the pass was broken up and wait, whats this a flag. Pass Interference, I s*** you not maybe the 3rd PI call I've seen all season. Now I have the ball at their 39 with 25 seconds, I run a deep in and complete it and scramble to down the ball. Man they move so slow when trying to do this I manage to kill the clock with 5 seconds left.

I hit the FG with 1 second left and a squib kick later I win. It was amazing how tough the games got once I got into the playoffs. If they all played like that the game would be a lot of fun. The game must be inflating the difficulty and intensity during the post season.

I'm digging that I can't re-sign some of my player no matter what I try. Alex Brown just wants out of town, so I slapped the franchise tag in his ass LOL

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 8:55 am

Danimal wrote:I'm digging that I can't re-sign some of my player no matter what I try. Alex Brown just wants out of town, so I slapped the franchise tag in his ass LOL

No wonder he wats out of town. You're slapping him on the a$$

For the first time in almost a month, I played a game of Madden. I really want the patch, especially after my game last night.

Once again, I got screwed out of a FG with multiple holding penalties that eventually took me out of range. My offense was having a ton of trouble running the ball, which seems to be a slider issue. No matter how I mix things up or tyr differetn things, I simply cannot get a good running game going. In the 3rd quarter I decided to test the AI and cheese my way down the field with slants over the middle. No matter who the reciver is, any type of crossing route over the middle seems to work 80% of the time. My last item is that once again teh CPU could not run the ball, and resorted to passing 2/3 of the time.

I really liked this game when I first started playing, but the newness is wearing off. I'm beginning to notice things that are quickly sucking the fun out of the game for me.

MizzouRah · Post by **MizzouRah** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:44 am

I think I'm finally going to start up my franchise tonight.. is the consenses to start on AP with 20 second clock run off?

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:55 am

Patch is up for both systems in case you were wondering.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:40 am

MizzouRah wrote:I think I'm finally going to start up my franchise tonight.. is the consenses to start on AP with 20 second clock run off?

I would start with 15 second runoff first. I tend to do some reviewing and motion, and 20 seconds was really rushing me.

All-Pro is a very good place to start. I'd also try the default Slow speed -- it allows you to see what's happening more clearly.

Depending on your play style, interceptions for CPU and human players will need to be lowered, while the CPU running sliders increased a little. The patch is supposed to improve the effectiveness of the sliders, so I'm not sure how much. If you also find your defense is a little too dominating, try lowering your defensive reaction time. I've really only needed a few minor tweaks to make the game challenging and fun offline.

MizzouRah · Post by **MizzouRah** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:59 pm

Brando70 wrote:
MizzouRah wrote:I think I'm finally going to start up my franchise tonight.. is the consenses to start on AP with 20 second clock run off?
I would start with 15 second runoff first. I tend to do some reviewing and motion, and 20 seconds was really rushing me.

All-Pro is a very good place to start. I'd also try the default Slow speed -- it allows you to see what's happening more clearly.

Depending on your play style, interceptions for CPU and human players will need to be lowered, while the CPU running sliders increased a little. The patch is supposed to improve the effectiveness of the sliders, so I'm not sure how much. If you also find your defense is a little too dominating, try lowering your defensive reaction time. I've really only needed a few minor tweaks to make the game challenging and fun offline.

Thank you! I like to start off at default and then make little tweaks from there.. really appreciate the help!

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:22 pm

Quick warning about the holding slider. Anything over 53 will result in holding penalties on just about every other play.

I think I'm going to try lowering the reaction time for both sides. Maybe that will help the running games on both sides. I also want to try the speed differential(?) slider.

Is there any fix, either in the patch or through sliders, for the easy completions over the middle?

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:51 pm

Rumor is the patch tweaked penalties. People are reporting PI calls, including Offensive PI which would be the first time I've ever seen that called in video football.

I won't see the patch til tomorrow but am curious after I just had my draft last night for my OL franchise.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:15 pm

Anyone know how to reset the sliders back to default? I'd like to tweak them myself as I play rather than go off someone's "preferred" sliders.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:27 pm

sportdan30 wrote:Anyone know how to reset the sliders back to default? I'd like to tweak them myself as I play rather than go off someone's "preferred" sliders.

They vary by level (if you change the levels, you'll see the grayed-out sliders change). I believe All-Pro default is to have everything at 50,which creates a "10" difficulty across the board. There might be a button to reset them, too -- check the button bar at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it rotates with different descriptions of what the buttons do.

Slumberland · Post by **Slumberland** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:18 pm

matthewk wrote:In the 3rd quarter I decided to test the AI and cheese my way down the field with slants over the middle. No matter who the reciver is, any type of crossing route over the middle seems to work 80% of the time.

I sort of agree with this. I wonder if the tweaks to coverage in the patch have changed anything in the CPU's ability to cover the middle, but it seems like a playcalling deficiency more than anything.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 6:44 pm

Slumberland wrote:
matthewk wrote:In the 3rd quarter I decided to test the AI and cheese my way down the field with slants over the middle. No matter who the reciver is, any type of crossing route over the middle seems to work 80% of the time.
I sort of agree with this. I wonder if the tweaks to coverage in the patch have changed anything in the CPU's ability to cover the middle, but it seems like a playcalling deficiency more than anything.

Man coverage is definitely improved. I've only played two games, but it seems like a significant change.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:02 am

I'm not sure what to make of the patch. I've only played one game, a 15 minute-quarter, 15-second-runoff game on All-Pro, Bears (me) vs. Packers. It was a crazy 48-45 OT win for me, where I came back from a 23-7 deficit.

Pros:
+CPU offense seemed more difficult to stop. Aaron Rodgers threw for 300 yards. With the running game, Packers YPC was a little over 3.0, but they rushed more than 25 times and kept running since they had the lead early. Two of their scores were from interceptions, but still, the offense pasted 31 points on me.

+I had seen some inaccuracy from QBs before, but it almost seems like they tweaked it more. At one point Cutler got hurt and I had to play Caleb Hanie, who is a 45 OVR. First play, I threw a corner route that went a good 10 yards over and to the side of the receiver. Most inaccurate pass I've ever seen in a Madden game from a QB, and I had a few more really poor throws with him.

+Run blocking seems better. I only averaged 3.5 yards, but that's because I tried a few outside runs that I shouldn't have. Between the tackles, I had more success -- no huge gains, but it seemed like I could follow blockers better.

+Downfield blocking was nice too. I had a short pass go for a 50 yard gain because a WR threw a nice block on a safety.

+Definitely harder for me to run outside. That was one area where I thought it was less realistic before.

+Coverage was more logical. This was a pass-heavy game, so the coverage wasn't effective, but it didn't look so screwy. It seems like it's more a game of exploiting mismatches than bugs in the game. The flats in particular were not as effective if a defender was covering the RB.

+Fatigue definitely appears to be a factor. Frankly, by the end of the game, both defenses seemed less effective.

+Saw a defensive PI call with the slider at 50. Hadn't seen one at all in previous games with it at 90.

+Green Bay missed an XP. Clanged it off the right post.

Cons:
-They did something to the running animation. When in the open field, it's like they slowed down the player by cutting a frame or two. There's a weird hitch to the motion. It didn't seem to affect gameplay much as there were still big plays, and I was used to it by the end of the game. It's just odd.

-Crazy amount of passing in the game. Rodgers had about 310, and I had 475 yards. Despite Hanie's accuracy issues, I still threw 175 with him and 300 with Cutler. A lot of that was from intermediate passes where I broke a tackle and racked up the YAC. Could be an anomaly but given the Packers secondary ratings, I should have been held in check more.

-Still a lot of blitzing, which leaves the CPU defense vulnerable to flats and passes over the middle if they don't reach the QB in time.

-It seems harder to get sacks now. I actually was having pretty good success with sacking the CPU. In fact, this is the first Madden game I can recall where I regularly get coverage sacks. However, I had only 1 in this game and about 4-5 of the wounded duck passes. Have to play more to see if this sticks.

Overall, impression after one long game is that it made human offense easier and human defense harder. I'll have to keep playing to see if that impression holds up.

Slumberland · Post by **Slumberland** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:11 am

I sort of like the iPhone Madden. It's a first attempt and it's got no difficulty levels, whi ch sucks, but has me going back to old school methods for mitigating difficulty. In this case, I'm playing with the Lions.

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:30 am

Brando70 wrote: Cons:
-They did something to the running animation. When in the open field, it's like they slowed down the player by cutting a frame or two. There's a weird hitch to the motion. It didn't seem to affect gameplay much as there were still big plays, and I was used to it by the end of the game. It's just odd.

No doubt about it. I think it's a fudge to allow for better pursuit, particularly on INTs. You can actually see this in action in my OF highlights tha I posted last night. Check out Hester's KO return and it's pretty obvious.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:57 am

RobVarak wrote:
Brando70 wrote: Cons:
-They did something to the running animation. When in the open field, it's like they slowed down the player by cutting a frame or two. There's a weird hitch to the motion. It didn't seem to affect gameplay much as there were still big plays, and I was used to it by the end of the game. It's just odd.
No doubt about it. I think it's a fudge to allow for better pursuit, particularly on INTs. You can actually see this in action in my OF highlights tha I posted last night. Check out Hester's KO return and it's pretty obvious.

I noticed that when I watched the highlight. Funny thing is it didn't really stop the big plays. You had the KO return, I had two short passes that turned into 50+ yard gains, and the CPU had a 72-yard gain with Ryan Grant where Urlacher couldn't catch up to him, despite the animation.

I do think the pursuit angles are better. One of my 50-yard gains with Hester was stopped from being a TD because the AI safety took a better angle to cut him off.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:24 pm

I finally decided to kill the in game commentary and I find the game a lot more enjoyable.

I downloaded the new roster update as well.

GTHobbes · Post by **GTHobbes** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:16 am

For PS3 owners, Reebok has some contest that, when you enter online, you're given a free code for the AFL download. I don't know that I'll ever use it, but I'm all for free stuff when it comes to things that EA is otherwise charging money for. Here's the link:

http://www.reebok.com/US/afl

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:25 am

Saw something crazy yesterday.

The Good: I was awarded a safety when my opposition was flagged for holding in the end zone. Nice one, EA.

The Bad: On the ensuing kick the camera never moved off of the punter. I couldn't see my return guy at all. Very bizarre.

MUTTS · Post by **MUTTS** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:00 pm

GTHobbes wrote:For PS3 owners, Reebok has some contest that, when you enter online, you're given a free code for the AFL download. I don't know that I'll ever use it, but I'm all for free stuff when it comes to things that EA is otherwise charging money for. Here's the link:

http://www.reebok.com/US/afl

Thanks for the find...was so easy to grab the code....

I certainly want going to pay $8 for it.

Tony

seanmac31 · Post by **seanmac31** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:40 pm

Who's tried out the broadcast angle? It's a lot of fun and surprisingly playable. I don't know that I'd go through full games using it other than in coach mode, but it' well worth checking out.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:43 pm

I've tried it. A west coast offense is fun, but running is horrendous for me. You can't really see the holes develop and I end up just plowing into linemen repeatedly. Kind of cool for coach mode, but since I love running more than anything else, it kills the enjoyment to actually play that way.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:49 pm

After three franchise games post patch, I do think they kind of screwed up the CPU QBs taking sacks. It seems like they do the wounded duck throw more now, where I could get sacks more readily if receivers were covered. I did lower pass blocking for the AI to 40 and managed two sacks without wrecking protection, so maybe that will help a little.

There are also some minor additional bugs I didn't see before:

1) wrong info about a team's history (putting up a Bengals fact for the Bears)

2) the referee sideline catch animation being triggered and the announcers saying a sideline catch was made on a pass that was batted down by a defender.

GTHobbes · Post by **GTHobbes** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:22 pm

seanmac31 wrote:Who's tried out the broadcast angle? It's a lot of fun and surprisingly playable. I don't know that I'd go through full games using it other than in coach mode, but it' well worth checking out.

I've only had a chance to play one game with it so far, but I love it (though I would like a bit closer angle for running plays). I couldn't complete many games before using the stale old "behind the QB" view, but I can see myself making it through a whole season using the Broadcast cam view. Good stuff.

icvu42 · Post by **icvu42** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 8:50 am

Well I finalyy started my franchise last night with the Dolphins. I played at All-Pro default level and had a great game. I won 30-26 against Atlanta ... Turner burned me for 186 yards...but I was able to come up with some big stops on 3rd down to get the win. Only adjustment I may have to make is to fatigue. I was throwing alot to my tight ends, and by middle of the third quarter, I regularly had tackles filling in as TE's because my guys were so tired....I did get a good rotation of my running backs and WR's...maybe my TE's are just out of shape!

Rick