Undoing Speed's Dominance

Recently our interview with ex-Tiburon developer, Bob; not only sparked much debate, but also drew some criticism from members of the hardcore community. Over the next two days we'll post some of the really good discussion that's been sparked from the speed issue. One of the moderators over at OS (youalreadyknow) was passionate, but also very measured and logical about some of his complaints to what he viewed as "shortcuts" to fixing Madden gameplay. While we'd like for issues to be addressed in some fashion rather than not at all, he makes some really good  points. We worry though, that something as indepth as what he's talking about wouldn't be viewed as "too ambitious" given the history of the developer. Tommorrow we'll post the counterpoints to his argument, posted by another OS regular: kzdwfy.

EDITORS NOTE: Regarding this silly rumor that our interview was manufactured; we'd recommend you examine the motivations of the people that are quick to claim our interview was anything but legitimate. Also, what would be the benefits of putting up a faux interview only to have it promptly called out? For the record, we never claimed Ian Cummings was the interviewee (we also never said it wasn't) we said that it was a former Tiburon Dev who requested anonymity; and even though we didn't see anything inflammatory or defaming in the interview; we respected that. And will continue to, as our ability to quote sources off the record would be in jeopardy if we didn't. Lastly, we've rounded up several more interviews with other notable people in our Madden Community Interview Series that we'll be posting in the next few days, these are people that had no problem being quoted on the record, and if these interviews lack integrity we're pretty sure it will quickly be revealed. Again, examine the motivations. THAT IS ALL.

In order to have speed more accurately represented in Madden, and to lower the dominance of fast players who weren't necessarily good players instead of tying awareness to speed, youalreadyknow recommended:

1. Increase the amount of contact on the football field which should reduce the amount of times that players are able to go untouched using straight line track speed. The amount of contact in this game is far less frequent than in the real world and the contact is typically "all or nothing" rather than the small nudges and pushes we see in actual football.

2. Make the Acceleration rating tie in more to changes in direction. The player's "weight" still doesn't convey properly in Madden's animations and that's why we often see that herky jerky motion of a player going from 0 to 100 in a split second.

3. Introduce break down steps into the running animations on the field. Real people don't go from a full sprint to a normal sprint when breaking down a defender or setting up a spin move like they do in Madden. These break down moves that should be required when in the open field would take a ball carrier or player out of top speed mode (full sprint) and make them kick off a new acceleration animation to reach top speed.

4. For receivers, make the Route Running rating impact their ability to break and turn in their routes more. This is in the game but the effect is too subtle in my opinion.

5. Stop allowing ball carriers to run through arm tackles without losing speed. Tacklers just bounce off the ball carrier like pinballs during a lot of these missed tackle animations and the loss of speed is so minimal that the player is back to full speed before you even notice that the tackle was missed. It's unrealistic and needs to be fixed in order for Point #1 above to have any impact.

6. Running between the tackles is far too clean in Madden. When defenders get blown up by blockers, the ball carrier shouldn't be able to just magically sprint at full speed through the pile of bodies. Again, maximize contact. Make the player break down their feet to get through or around bodies on the ground. Make the defenders reach out and grab for ankles or grab the jersey while falling to the ground.

7. Widen the turn radius when a player is running full speed with the Turbo button. If I'm running full speed towards the sideline, then I shouldn't be able to just turn it upfield in two steps. It takes a lot of physical effort to decelerate and change direction while maintaining speed in real life. If you want to try it, run full speed towards a brick wall and try to turn and run parallel to the wall when you get within 2 yards of that wall. Good luck with the end result on that.

There's 7 examples above of analyzing how things work in the real world and applying them towards Madden. I'm sure some people would agree with some of the above and not others, but I'm sure SOMETHING above could be translated into Madden and would make the game better. But rather than actually making the game more authentic, I guess you're OK with taking the easy shortcut and using a completely unrelated rating like Awareness and neutering fast players just because they aren't "Aware".