Madden NFL 23 Closed Beta Feedback. [ Edited ]

[NatureBoy2323]

Welcome back to Gridiron Notes, Madden fans!

If you weren’t able to participate in the Madden NFL 23 Closed Beta, no worries. You’ll be able to check out our Gridiron Notes to learn what’s new in your favorite Madden NFL 23 mode.

Thank you all for taking the time to give your feedback on the MaddenVoice forums while participating in Madden NFL 23 Closed Beta.

We wanted to touch on your feedback and suggestions during the Closed Beta with notes straight from our development team. Our team is focused on delivering a high quality, polished Madden NFL 23 experience starting with our 3-Day Early Access launch on August 16th.

Gameplay Feedback

• Don’t Drastically Change the Game/Leave Coverage Reaction Time Alone
  670 Votes - 514 Comments 
  • DEV NOTE: The number one feedback topic we received! Rest assured Madden community, our vision of game balance is consistent with yours and the gameplay you experienced in the Closed Beta is what you’ll be playing on launch day.
  • There has been polish added and bugs fixed from players’ feedback to make it even better, but the overall experience will be as you played in the Closed Beta.
     
• Add Referees back to the Game/On the Field
  289 Votes - 297 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: While referees returning to the field during live gameplay is not something we will be able to deliver in Madden 23, it is something that we want to get as badly as our players; we want to make sure that when refs do return, they return in a state where visual quality is on par with the rest of the characters on the field; refs is very high on our future roadmap.
     
• Play Awareness - Too easy to run the same plays over and over again
  270 Votes - 249 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: We’ve made a number of changes since the Closed Beta to bring more balance to gameplay. We believe these changes will bring more variety to playcalling, but we want to hear from you, our community, when the game launches to let us know how you feel about these changes - each of these implemented changes may be further tuned via a  Madden NFL 23 Title Update:
  •  
    • Logic added so that when defensive backs are playing in linebacker positions, they will have slower reaction time to the running game.
    • Removed the ability to hot route TE’s to a pass block assignment when in a 2-point WR stance
    • Adjusted the Corner Route in Bunch formations and the corner hot-route in the Hot Route Master and Slot Apprentice abilities to align with the other corner routes throughout the playbooks.
    • Made improvements to man coverage pre-snap alignment vs. bunch formations
       
• Pulling Lineman are too slow/too indecisive
  221 Votes - 125 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: Tuning and AI changes were made to make pulling linemen be more explosive through the line of scrimmage. And on top of the foundational improvements, you’ll have to keep an eye on the Speed (SPD) rating of the pulling lineman, as slower OL’s could force you to lay off the acceleration mechanic while he navigates and faster OL’s will get through quicker allowing you to accelerate sooner on the play. 
     
• Pass Blocking isn’t strong enough/Too many ‘Insta-sheds’
  192 Votes - 191 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: As noted in the Closed Beta Gridiron Notes, there was a bug causing super-wins to trigger too frequently early in the Closed Beta which was a primary contributor to the overpowered feeling. Looking at overall defensive gameplay, having a powerful pass rush is critical to the balance of the game, and the pass rush at launch is still going to be more powerful than it was in Madden NFL 22.

• User Interceptions aren’t always responsive:
  
  • Tuning to catch animations to increase range for jumping INT’s
  • Tuning to significantly decrease situations where the player is requesting ‘Play Ball’ without seeing the corresponding animation response.

• Man Coverage Fake-outs are too frequent:
  
  • Tuning to significantly reduce the frequency of fakeouts by man coverage defenders
  • Added new logic so the fakeouts could be used in super-win situations where the ratings delta is heavily in favor of the WR

• Too Many Fumbles:
  
  • Tuning to significantly reduce fumble chance on QB hits inside the pocket
  • Tuning to significantly reduce fumble chance on QB hits while in the early portion of the throw
  • Tuning to reduce fumbles by non-QB ball carriers on hit-sticks and strip-ball attempts
  • Significant reduction to ‘punch-out’ fumbles by AI-controlled defenders during stand-up tackles on Competitive game style

• Not enough Hit-Stick Variety:
  
  • 27 new hit-stick animations have been added for launch
  • Most of the existing animations have been updated to make them look/behave differently

• WR’s should win more contested catches in mismatches:
  
  • Tuning to increase catch success for WR’s in contested-catch situations when in a mismatch.
  • Logic added to include WR physical attributes such as height to play a more significant role in the success of contested catches.

• Skill Based Passing can be difficult to understand
  
  • DEV NOTE: Even though it was not in the Closed Beta, when you first turn on the game at launch, you will have the opportunity to play through an onboarding flow to learn more about the new passing system. You will also have the opportunity to lab deeper in practice mode.
  • And lastly, additional work has been done on the in-game feedback systems to make it even more user-friendly, such as color-coding the feedback text and passing reticle to match the level of accuracy. Be on the lookout for more developer deep dives closer to launch that will go into even more detail about Skill-Based Passing and what it can unlock in the passing game.

Franchise Feedback

• Franchise Draft Crash
  77 Votes - 60 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: This was our top issue reported from the Closed Beta and has been addressed for launch.

• Sim Stats
  50 Votes - 36 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: We fixed an issue where the longest pass completion in simulations was 25 yards. We have also focused on tuning sim stats to try and match real life stats as closely as possible. We know that you can have a wide range of results in any sim, but our goal is to give you a realistic statistical snapshot.

• Low Interest Players are signing frequently during Re-Sign periods
  32 Votes - 18 Comments
  • DEV NOTE: We have done several rounds of tuning in this area to try and make this more realistic in how and when players will re-sign with their current team.  

• Salary Cap
  • DEV NOTE: We received feedback that some teams didn’t have enough salary cap space available to re-sign players and during the Free Agency period. We have continued to update real life player contracts as that information becomes available along with trying to tune the amounts players will ask for during the different stages. Our goal is to strike the balance between fun and challenging, especially if you are controlling a team that doesn’t have much cap space at the start of your Franchise.

• CPU Draft Logic
  • DEV NOTE: There were some reports about seeing teams drafting QBs when they already had quality starters on their team. Since the Closed Beta, this has been a key area of focus as we are utilizing the new Player Tags feature to help prevent this from happening.

• Eval Offers causing a crash in Free agency
  • Fixed for Launch

• Get Offers Trade Tuning
  • We have done a few rounds of tuning with our new Get Offers trade feature

• NFL Draft Flicker Issue
  • There were a couple graphical issues we had during the Closed Beta that have since been resolved

• High Profile Players in FA
  • We saw players mention that they were seeing several top tier players available in Free Agency. We tried to help improve this in a couple different ways:
    • Tuned Player Motivations to help better match current teams to help give these teams a better chance of re-signing them.
    • Continued to update real life player contracts for players that signed new deals to remove them from the list of potential Free Agents in year 1 of Franchise. 
    • As mentioned above, tuned amount of money players will ask for along with Team Salary Cap data  

• Progression History showing wrong training information
  • We had a bug where the training history for offense and defense was flipped that has been fixed. 

• Misaligned Assign Scout Text
  • Fixed an issue where you couldn’t see the scouting region text when assigning a scout

• Scouting Tiers Showing 4 Stars
  • Fixed an issue where we showed 4 stars instead of 3.
  • We added the stars this year to try and help better explain the Tier level of Scouts as we received feedback from players on Madden NFL 22 that it wasn’t clear right away if Tier 1 is best or Tier 3

• Help Tips
  • Added help tips for the following: Free Agent Hub, Contract Negotiation, and Scouting stage updates

Face of the Franchise & The Yard Feedback 

• More Customization options for Create-a-Player:
  • DEV NOTE: Our focus for customization in Madden NFL 23 was more on the progression and skills side than visual customization, with the goal of giving players more freedom in how they use skill points per each of the available positions. We also added options to reset and ‘Re-Spec’ your character’s skill points and body type/archetype at any time. There are few new visual customization options that we do want to mention: 6 towel placement slots, two new options for jersey fit, and updated gear.

• Tattoos for your create a player:
  • DEV NOTE: This level of customization is something we want to deliver as badly as our players want it and is something in the roadmap for future iterations.

• New Plays/Ways to Play The Yard:
  • DEV NOTE: We focused on making the experience more user-friendly, allowing players to get into and out of games quicker. We've also reduced the amount of Campaign and Solo Challenges so that players will have more time to play H2H and Co-Op, in addition to Ranked Yard being available at launch.

• Player-Locked Camera Angles in Face of the Franchise:
  • All of the cinematic and traditional player-lock cameras have been tuned per feedback received during the Closed Beta to make the views more usable and functional. We’ve also added a third option for each position, called ‘Wide,’ that can be toggled via the D-Pad camera toggle that will allow you to play from a view that’s similar to the ‘All 22’ POV. 

___Madden NFL 23 - Closed Beta Feedback (ea.com)

[Mutgrel]

I didn't play the beta, but there are a few items I'd like to respond to.

1. Add Referees back to the Game/On the Field:

I can think of only one competitive reason to have referees on the field and that's the fact that you can sometimes get a natural pick from them in the passing game. Other than that, I'm really not sure why we'd want to spend development time on this when there are so many other things to fix.

2. Play Awareness - Too easy to run the same plays over and over again:

A. Logic added so that when defensive backs are playing in linebacker positions, they will have slower reaction time to the running game.

I appreciate this change for what it is. A band aid. It's not realistic. It's kind of a like the light box pancake rules that were just taken out.

I wish you guys would spend significant time balancing out the game so that it was more like real football and less like an arcade game that ignores football physics. Maybe next year you can just make it so defensive backs at linebacker get mowed down in the running game (especially the user) and then people will just stop doing this so much.

It's not lost on me that "on paper" Madden 23 appears to be moving in the right direction. But there's just so much more to do, and it's really tiresome to see the fundamentals of football ignored on huge aspects of the game year after year.

B. Adjusted the Corner Route in Bunch formations and the corner hot-route in the Hot Route Master and Slot Apprentice abilities to align with the other corner routes throughout the playbooks.

This change is long overdue and I applaud it. In the interest of balance this should really be happening with all routes though, not just corner routes. We're not going to achieve anything that looks like a balanced game until we rip up the foundation and start over. I think it's clear from what you guys are doing with the defensive logic, you just can't allow outliers and deviations. It's too hard to test, it's too hard to balance, and it's too hard to keep up with a moving target like that. Keep it simple.

C. Made improvements to man coverage pre-snap alignment vs. bunch formations

I'm assuming this means that man coverage players will no longer be on the same plain so they won't all bump into each other every time they guard a bunch set? I know there's some legacy logic built into DB coverage (i.e. banjo), but it's been broken in past years. So I guess I'm also hopeful that maybe that's been fixed to make some of these defensive plays actually work the way they're supposed to? (I'm thinking about Cover 1 Hole, just as one example).

3. Pulling Lineman are too slow/too indecisive

It looks like the intent with many of the run balancing changes is to allow the offensive ball carrier to "use" blockers more efficiently and force the defense to actually tackle them. This is instead of trying to "fix" the blocking for so many use cases that it may be impossible to ever get correct. If this is correct, I think it's certainly worth a try. I sounds like it might be much better than it's ever been so I'm excited to try it out and see how it works in practice.

One thing I'm very skeptical of though is the influence of the defensive user on the O-line AI, the ability to shoot the gap, and the ability to get back in coverage so quickly that play action passes can't work no matter how well the offense is running the ball. There's just so much that's wrong with the way the defense reacts to play action, and the way the user is still super human that I'm not sure making lineman speed up on pulls is all that important.

4. Man Coverage Fake-outs are too frequent:

I think Madden relies on stats way too much, and this subject is a great example of that. If the game is so simple that all you have to do is throw to the guy that has a 20-30 point advantage in a particular stat, what are we doing here? The NFL doesn't work like that. Yes there are certainly mismatches, but not throw to the same guy every play running the same route all game long mismatches. Unfortunately, there's just not enough emphasis on play calling and player skill in situations like "man coverage fake-outs" and other similar topics like fumbles and height advantage. It's not fun to have to get Randy Moss on your team for no other reason than that's the only way to compete. As good a player and as dominate as Randy Moss was, the guy NEVER won a Super Bowl. Which means he was stoppable even though he was better than anyone else at that position. We need to do a much better job representing that in Madden, and just tweaking the way stats influence that doesn't do justice to the game.

5. Too Many Fumbles:

As I was saying above, just tweaking the way stats (or in this case thresholds) influence that doesn't do justice to the game. What's the right balance on QB fumbles? Well I'm not sure what we're talking about. The average Madden player I watch doesn't step up in the pocket, rolls out unprotected every play, scrambles for extra yards without getting out of bounds, and tries to throw the ball deep on every play! Do you think maybe we'd see more fumbles from the QB if everyone in the NFL was doing that? I do. So why are we toning this down again?

I think we're missing a huge opportunity to teach players to be more risk adverse and use a little more common sense. Dumb play should equal turnovers.

6. WR’s should win more contested catches in mismatches:

I want big physical receivers to catch the ball against smaller defenders as much as anyone. But your solution sounds like you made it easier to perform high ball aggressive catches without giving the defense a tool to defend it. That's what I mean when I say that just tweaking the stats is rarely if ever a good way to balance this game. You can't min/max your way into balance, you have to design the game in a way that reduces the impact of the stats. In football that would mean that play calling and player skill would trump the OVR of the player making the catch. I don't hear that in your solution.

[Loaf29]

@Mutgrel YES YES and YES! You are so spot on with every assessment you made.

This game 100% sounds like it’s moving in the right direction. I will give them props for that (so far it’s just marketing, but when I get in game, I will really applaud it).

That being said, you can’t Band-Aid your way to a great game. And one small little detail that I think would be fun to add is a button to cover the ball as a quarterback. You see it so many times in NFL games, a quarterback getting sacked, so he tucks the ball in and gets tackled, minimizing his chances of a fumble. Maybe that could be a button, but the people that are standing around in the pocket and rolling out and just running with the quarterback, 100% should be at risk of fumbling

[Mutgrel]

@Loaf29 I like your idea for a tuck mechanic. Raiders fans may really dislike that though.