STOP: User Skill will never be EVEN

I listened to Da Czar's radio show on 6/8/12 (great show by the way, Czar) and while many people focused on different aspects of the show, one thing stuck out to me specifically: When DLG's Jason mentioned how Madden user catching needed tuning because he was having too much success with it at E3. When I interviewed him later for this story he mentioned seeing more than a few "head scratching catches on All-Pro". He also mentioned it could be taken care of "with a little tuning"...I'm not so sure, however. I mean i've heard of a tuner set but i've never actually seen one...have you?

Pencil me in for an "I told you so" moment because i'm telling you right now, easier USER CATCHING on offense and defense has the potential to break Madden 13 beyond repair.

And its all for naught because the thing that they're attempting to accomplish (accounting for user skill) can't be done. It's a myth, a farce, IMPOSSIBLE. It only creates worse gameplay issues. We hear the same things every year don't we? "User catching is too hard, I can't get get any interceptions, forcing fumbles never works for me, tackling is too hard, I can't use the hit-stick" the list goes on and on. We even have 2K fans whining about not getting enough blocks or steals. Here's the thing: Czar broke it down months ago, there's one way to account for the variety in user skill: Difficulty Levels. END OF STORY.

I didn't play Madden 12 for long, but one instance really stuck out to me. I was using the Seahawks in an online ranked game against the Cardinals. The guy I was playing already had 2 user picks but I shrugged it off as good fortune. Later in the game my opponent kept going 5-wide and throwing a curl to right flat. I'm an average skill user but I took my 4th corner at the time (Richard Sherman) and got in position and tried to pick the ball off. Surprise: I intercepted the ball the next two times he attempted the pass, but it didn't sit well with me at all. Two for two? Madden has a long history of trying to use too-many interceptions to make up for poor DB play. Talk about a sloppy band-aid. If I could go pick-crazy in a game imagine what the really good guys could do. Could you even complete a pass against them? I knew at that point that the amount of interceptions needed to come way down. The next day we turned down interceptions in our Community to 25 and got a much more authentic version of football.

Developers can make things easier on less-skilled users by making the actions above less difficult on lower difficulty levels. They can even also throw them a bone by allowing lower valued online ranked games for less-skilled players. What they CANNOT do is make difficult actions on the default simulation setting (especially online) EASIER, all that does is destroy the SIM experience, ruin offensive and defensive balance and potentially reduce us to the jetpacking levels we saw in Madden 04 &05--and no one wants that.

There's no rule that says you're entitled to be able to compete with experienced players in any online sports game just because you'd like to. You don't see shooters making aiming easier, do you? Online players are often really good, know the game's Ins and Outs, have good strategy and often know many of the game's loopholes as well. There is only one way to compete with them. GET ON THEIR LEVEL. The instant developers break the Gamer Social Contract by making the game easier for challenged users (scrubs) not only does the advanced user gain a more decided advantage, but ridiculous stats ruin any simulation value the game had and the game devolves from what used to be a sport to simply being a videogame. I didn't sign up to play God Of War last I checked.Who really wants to see Blaine Gabbert slicing up defenses like he's Tom Brady? Talk about ruining immersion. Let's just go ahead and make things REALLY easy by having Shaq shoot 90% from the line and D.Howard shoot 60% from deep why don't we? Then again...

At a basic level for your sports game to be an enjoyable simulation (and continue to be a simulation online) it must mirror real-life success rates and this must be HARD-CODED into the game. A baseball game's best hitters must max out in the .300 range, and basketball teams should rarely shoot over 50% and never over 60% for a game. Football's best passers must have completion percentages from 60-65% (and sometimes higher--but rarely) When developers don't stay true to these numbers is when gameplay suffers ridiculously. Few will forget when Madden allowed users to chuck the ball downfield endlessly with little consequences from Madden 02-09. Wonder why everyone abuses 4th downs? Look no further than money plays that laugh at real conversion rates. NBA 2K players cried foul when other players abused the paint because close-in shots had a too-high conversion rate (and in truth animations like the spin dunk and hop-step illustrate this problem continues) I'll never forget the last year of MVP Baseball when Barry Bonds (or rather...the guy who was supposed to represent him) went yard seemingly any and every time that he wanted. Difficult actions in-game are difficult for a reason...SO NOT EVERYONE CAN DO THEM. Imagine passing for 500 yards in every game or dunking from the FT Line every possession. Fun, right?

 A funny thing happened in NBA 2K11 however, the developers over at 2K added contact animations, made defended interior shots more difficult, hard-coded the percentages we alluded to and gameplay went through the roof. Shooting close to 60% was probably possible with a mixture of clueless defense and nothing but wide open shots, but for all intents and purposes was impossible. Many still view 2K11 as a gaming masterpiece. Why? Because it felt like real basketball. Funny how that works.

As a general rule developers must tune games with the skilled user in mind, not the unskilled one. They have to make offensive and defensive balance a reality for the player who can easily perform any stick action in the game and generate animations at a whim. Its the reason we've lobbied so hard for a Defensive Stick in NBA 2K in addition to animations that can be interrupted. As it stands a skilled user can sometimes disregard the FG percentages and reduce the defense to an afterthought--never good.

We'll see how the counters and other elements to insure offensive/defensive balance in sports games work this year. 2K's Eric B. raved about the advances to defense this year and hopefully these "catch tackles" (we call them dislodges and pass breakups) in Madden prevent users from going up and grabbing everything (and most importantly lowering the percentages on passes like curls and slants) But these can't require user input, they have to built into the AI. We'll see how it all comes together, but developers must keep in mind that user skill is the one variable that will never be equal. Adding more strategic elements to the game is the only option. Some people will always have more stick skill than others and there's nothing anyone can do about it.