Madden 11 Impressions

[Brando70]

I appreciate the impressions people have posted. I'm more on the fence about Madden 11 than I have been about a Madden game ever. I was sure I'd love it after seeing M10 make a pretty big leap from the previous next-gen versions, but the feedback makes it sound like Madden 10.5. After playing so much Madden 10, I don't really want to play essentially the same game with a new coat of paint. I'm starting to think a year off from the franchise might be the best idea, maybe try NCAA again for the first time in a few years, or just skip football and keep playing The Show until the NBA games are out.

[GTHobbes]

I read something yesterday about how you're not able to challenge friends to a game online...maybe I'm mistaken about what I read, but if that's the case, it's an awfully strange decision. I wonder what the motivation was there.

[greggsand]

I read something yesterday about how you're not able to challenge friends to a game online...maybe I'm mistaken about what I read, but if that's the case, it's an awfully strange decision. I wonder what the motivation was there.

My guess if you can't initiate "ranked" games with a friend. You can def play non-ranked games.

[Aristo]

You also cannot play friends in Ultimate Team, either. The reason for that is clear. Money.

Friends could agree to build there teams without using cash and compete and have fun. But without team play, you are facing strangers that probably used cash to upgrade their team. The entire game mode is tuned to suck you into spending cash.

I got 20,000 free points for buying it at Gamestop, which is around $10-$15 worth. I also had another 500 points from activating online pass, which was free. I bought a gold and a platinum pack. So 20,500 bought me two packs of cards, one gold, and one platinum. There is on higher pack of cards called Legendary, but it is 21,000 points.

After both packs, my team is still rated a 72, and most of my team is still bronze level players. I played one game vs. the CPU and got whipped, but earned 346 points. the packs cost me 6,000 and 12,000 points, so I am left with 2,846 points. Mind you, those players have ten game contracts, although I did get ONE contract card in a pack, so one of my players could be extended. So the clock is ticking on the next nine games. At this rate, when my better players expire, I will be just short of the 6000 points needed for a gold pack. Of course, with some wins, I could have more.

I could buy the bronze and silver packs for 1000 or 3000, and get more cards, but have a worse team. But these guys have 10 game contracts as well. How many points can I build up with a worse team over a ten game stretch?

The slow slog for building up a team would be worth it if I could play friends and we could show off the teams we've built. But to take on kids 99 rated teams over XBL is not worth the effort, at all. And it's not fun enough to just play solo, offline games. I generally get beat in online games as it is. I don't need to start forking over $10-$20 a month just to field a better to team to get creamed with. Especially when the mode rewards cheesers with more points.

I did fail to mention the other place you can generate points. There is a well designed auction house where you can buy and sell cards. Because so many points are infused into the economy via the kids spending money for points, the prices for cards are often inflated. these kids, as well as not having the patience to build a team, are also bad at math. You can flip basic cards for for more than you think. But this entails trying to rip some of the kids off, by selling a gold player with one or two games left, and hoping some kid will pay as though he has 10 games left. You can then grab some cheap cards and flip them for profit by upping their minimum bid to more than you paid, and waiting for the sucker.

But is all of that what I want out of Ultimate Team? No, it is simply to play with friends and compare teams, and that feature is left out.

[bkrich83]

I read something yesterday about how you're not able to challenge friends to a game online...maybe I'm mistaken about what I read, but if that's the case, it's an awfully strange decision. I wonder what the motivation was there.

Can't challenge friends to ranked games. It's been that way for a while. I believe the motivation was, people were playing their friends, and their friends were letting them beat them over and over again, in order to increase their ranking. I remember seeing a bunch of top 5 guys whos game history was like against 4 people and the scores were all the same.

I heard they were going to re-allow the challenging of friends to ranked games in the future, but really wasn't paying attention Ranked games are dumb imo, I play games online for fun, I could care less what my record is or what I am ranked. The Ranking systems bring out the worst in people online as they do whatever it takes to get a W and increase their rankings.

[vader29]

Tried a 15 minute quarter game with 25 second runoff last night and the stats came out pretty good with me running 68 plays and the cpu getting 58. Game moved along pretty good also, took just a few minutes over an hour to play. Thought it was going to be a blow out from the cpu as they scored tds on their first two drives but the game settled down after that and I ended up with a 31-28 win. Atlanta had 3 or 4 fumbles but recovered every one of them, they also missed 2 field goals. Was only one long play in the game and that was an 80 yard pass play for Atlanta, all of the other scoring drives were grind it out short and medium running and passing plays. One penalty in the entire game was the only stat that was lacking.

Some stats from the game were:
Matt Ryan - 17 of 36 for 207 yards, 3 tds and 1 int
Ben Roethlisberger - 19 of 37 for 222 yards, 2 tds and 4 ints
Michael Turner - 21 rushes for 84 yards
Rashaard Mendenhall - 25 rushes for 101 yards

[greggsand]

I read something yesterday about how you're not able to challenge friends to a game online...maybe I'm mistaken about what I read, but if that's the case, it's an awfully strange decision. I wonder what the motivation was there.

Can't challenge friends to ranked games. It's been that way for a while. I believe the motivation was, people were playing their friends, and their friends were letting them beat them over and over again, in order to increase their ranking. I remember seeing a bunch of top 5 guys whos game history was like against 4 people and the scores were all the same.

I heard they were going to re-allow the challenging of friends to ranked games in the future, but really wasn't paying attention Ranked games are dumb imo, I play games online for fun, I could care less what my record is or what I am ranked. The Ranking systems bring out the worst in people online as they do whatever it takes to get a W and increase their rankings.

My big problem with 'ranked games' was not being able to change any settings. "ranked" used to mean 5min quarters (no idea now).

[bkrich83]

Tried a 15 minute quarter game with 25 second runoff last night and the stats came out pretty good with me running 68 plays and the cpu getting 58. Game moved along pretty good also, took just a few minutes over an hour to play. Thought it was going to be a blow out from the cpu as they scored tds on their first two drives but the game settled down after that and I ended up with a 31-28 win. Atlanta had 3 or 4 fumbles but recovered every one of them, they also missed 2 field goals. Was only one long play in the game and that was an 80 yard pass play for Atlanta, all of the other scoring drives were grind it out short and medium running and passing plays. One penalty in the entire game was the only stat that was lacking.

Some stats from the game were:
Matt Ryan - 17 of 36 for 207 yards, 3 tds and 1 int
Ben Roethlisberger - 19 of 37 for 222 yards, 2 tds and 4 ints
Michael Turner - 21 rushes for 84 yards
Rashaard Mendenhall - 25 rushes for 101 yards

What settings were you using?

[vader29]

What settings were you using?

Default All Pro. It was a game in an online test franchise that I started so not sure if that makes any difference than a play now game would.

[ScoopBrady]

I'm not going to post in-depth thoughts but I did want to stop in and say that I am loving this game. I was a little frustrated with Gameflow but that changed when I took the time to make an offensive and defensive gameplan. Once I hand-picked all of the plays and weighted them Gameflow became much more enjoyable to me. There are times when it calls a passing play when I want to run but I always have the ability to audible out if I want to. Having the cpu pick out the plays I hand picked enables me to get games in quicker (a luxury with a little one in the house) as well as appreciate the presentation more.

[bkrich83]

What settings were you using?

Default All Pro. It was a game in an online test franchise that I started so not sure if that makes any difference than a play now game would.

Nice. Not sure if it does either.

[sportdan30]

I'm trying to enjoy this game, but can't get past the broken tackles and the big plays that seemingly happen at least once a quarter. I'll be patient with the game as I received it from Gamefly, but hopefully sliders or a patch will improve the overall gameplay.

On the positive, I put the player skill to Rookie and my 8 year old son is having a blast running up the score using the Colts!

[matthewk]

Will Ask Madden use the gameplan you set up or select?

[TCrouch]

I'm not going to post in-depth thoughts but I did want to stop in and say that I am loving this game. I was a little frustrated with Gameflow but that changed when I took the time to make an offensive and defensive gameplan. Once I hand-picked all of the plays and weighted them Gameflow became much more enjoyable to me. There are times when it calls a passing play when I want to run but I always have the ability to audible out if I want to. Having the cpu pick out the plays I hand picked enables me to get games in quicker (a luxury with a little one in the house) as well as appreciate the presentation more.

Exactly my experience.

Once I built my own gameplan, the games really came alive. They even called plays that I probably would have called on my own in a lot of instances. However, there's a few times where they ended up calling a play out of the base D when I saw the opposition had 3 wideouts, and I'd end up with a slower OLB matched up M2M on a slot receiver. Kooky. Rare, but it happened.

In any case, gameflow is the way to go for me with MY gameplan. The CPU gameplans are a bit corny.

[Leebo33]

I'm trying to enjoy this game, but can't get past the broken tackles and the big plays that seemingly happen at least once a quarter. I'll be patient with the game as I received it from Gamefly, but hopefully sliders or a patch will improve the overall gameplay.

I've been pretty happy after upping most of the defensive sliders to 55 for both me and the CPU. I played another game last night and beat Tennessee 23-7. There was only one play in the entire game over 25 yards and the stats were great.

[Rodster]

I'm trying to enjoy this game, but can't get past the broken tackles and the big plays that seemingly happen at least once a quarter. I'll be patient with the game as I received it from Gamefly, but hopefully sliders or a patch will improve the overall gameplay.

I've been pretty happy after upping most of the defensive sliders to 55 for both me and the CPU. I played another game last night and beat Tennessee 23-7. There was only one play in the entire game over 25 yards and the stats were great.

Same here, I don't see a whole lot of big plays on AP and "slow speed". I have most of my CPU defensive sliders set to 70 and I rarely see the CPU break a big one.

[matthewk]

Will Ask Madden use the gameplan you set up or select?

I found out the answer to my question. For anyone else that cares, the answer is yes. If you create a gameplan and select it prior to the game Ask Madden changes to My Gameplan and gives you 3 plays to choose from. I'll be using this instead of the gameflow since it gives you 3 options instead of just picking a play for you.

[wco81]

Well got into a couple of OTP games and there were some good moments.

But overall, they made a horrible mess out of this. Strategy Pad was created just so they could have a checkbox for marketing, no matter that it made presnap adjustments much more clumsy to deal with.

Gameflow is retarded too. If you get into a game without setting it to "Conventional" you have to go through extra button presses to get to the play calling screens you're used to.

And you can't directly invite people in the lobby to ranked games. WTF is behind that stupidity?

So I finished one OTP game and there were no stats sent or any kind of record of the game like in previous years for even non-ranked games (or the way FIFA tracks all games, online and offline). The other games, including singleplayer, all disconnected before completing. No records, not even a disconnect, no stats.

While in game, presumably All-Pro, you could see the pass defense AI had been dumbed down. All seam routes over the middle are open, most TEs are hard to defend. Of course, any chance of making some presnap adjustments are made unnecessarily difficult by the retarded Pad.

Oh and it seems like 90% of plays involve yards after first contact. Even when a 99 OVR player like Willis takes down a RB, it's not routine, like if you didn't finish the tackle, it would be broken and he'd keep going. Not much gang tackling when one defender is grappling and trying to bring the ballcarrier down.

Getting into OTP games is impossible too. Quick Play almost always ends with "session is no longer available" and it keeps saying my roster isn't current. Then in the lobby, people have to send you a message and you have to go out to the XMB and then read the message and click Join to get into the invited session. Again, another regression from previous years and other EA games.

It's almost like Tiburon is making certain things worse on purpose so that they can fix it for you in next year's version.

I haven't redeemed my online pass code. Might make sense to try to sell now, with the code unused and wait for NHL.

[greggsand]

Gameflow is retarded too. If you get into a game without setting it to "Conventional" you have to go through extra button presses to get to the play calling screens you're used to.

The idea of having gameflow 'on' is so that you DON'T have to go the playbooks. That's the point.

RE Gameflow: So I set up a custom gameplan today & used it with gameflow. I totally dig it. My gameplan needs some tweaks, but I love not having to mess with the full playbooks unless absolutely needed(mainly 3&1 situations). Good stuff.

[wco81]

No but you get into the habit of pressing X to dismiss the off-field animations between plays. I really don't need to see the zombie eyes of the coaches and players on the sidelines or wide shots of the stadium on every other play.

[Lancer]

I played some madden online and have mixed reaction.

I think online plays a smooth game then offline. its hard to explain but i sense this game was made more for the online tourney type crowd then offline sim players.

Gameflow online is broken for me. I played 2 guys where gameflow was being used, and on one play during the 4th qtr where I was down 2 scores, it had me do a qb kneel with 4 min left. I bet this was a glitch but I had to audible out of it. Other times, the cpu kept calling the same hail mary type of play where all the WR's go out straight up the field.

Just like offline, the gameflow for defense online is too weak. Seems like the plays on D never stop anyone.

[Danimal]

I'll save a detailed review for a later time, but here is my opinion on Madden 11.

Not once did I ever believe EA was complacent, people hated some version of the game like 06 and 08 etc but I never thought they were mailing it in. After 10 I thought they had taken a step down the road towards being a good game again. Madden 11 is a mailed in effort plain and simple. Locomotion is great, get past that and for everything they fixed they broke another egg. I can't even comprehend what an entire year was spent on, it's not even defensible IMO.

This game is near unplayable with default settings and since that is the case you just eliminated Online Franchise since we don't have sliders for it. You think last years numbers were bad for OF, wait I bet for 11 they will be non-existent.

I can't believe that NCAA and Madden are made by the same company. You have one game that is really a great football game and then you have this pile of steaming garbage which is an arcade game. I'm not sure how you manage to take a step backwards in less then a year but the madden team accomplished it.

What a shame, what a waste of time. I'll work on tweaking sliders just to get a decent game of football in SP, but they more or less killed the most fun I've had with a football title in years in OF.

[Rodster]

I went back to playing M10 and last years game was more polished. I even find M10 to be a little tougher than this years effort. I'm no football genius and I have to play M11 on AP with tweaked sliders to the benefit of the AI or i'll beat them just about every time.

Anyway at least the game is still fun.

[JRod]

One thing that hurts the AI is the play calling. There is little strategy to what the CPU tries to do. On third and long, it calls the streaks play far too often. And there isn't any real play calling strategy to react to teams strengths and weaknesses. It's all based on gameflow which calls a play based on situation but not game situation. For example, a team may be running poorly but then tries a draw just because that play has a higher rating in gameflow.

I think the AI play calling is pretty basic. And there's no positional awareness in the game, meaning that it doesn't try to create mismatches, or run at the weak links in a DL. Which takes the randomness feel out of the franchise mode.

[Lancer]

I hope some of these problems can be fixed by a patch. The last patch helped fix NCAA.

But some of the stuff in the game is bizarre. The main problem is the defense can't stop anyone. And at times, the cpu decides that there will be just up and down scoring for both teams. I've had games that were close for a qtr or two but then in the 3rd or 4th, both teams combine for 42 points. It just becomes up and down arcade style.

Another gripe is I can't seem to run the ball with some teams. I guess that is nice since the ratings system matters now,but lower rated runners should still be capable of getting some good runs. The Steelers are the only team that I can get a good running game going and where I can get some long runs.

Let's wait for the patch until final word is out. NCAA was too easy for me but now it's just right. The NCAA team was pretty quick in releasing the patch, so let's hope the madden team gets a patch out in the same amount of time.

But if this game was intended for tourney type play, which it seems that it is, then they have no incentive to change. Sim gamers will just be left out in the cold.