Player mechanics

[PapaPickett]

Every year I do my best to ignore ea's newest flaw in Madden because while always far from perfect, at the least its fun and competitive. I can no longer ignore how ea is downright horrible at making something great and then subtracting it from the newest addition in favor of something else. My issue is this. In a sports game, player movement and control is ABSOLUTELY critical! What happened to player movement? Especially running the ball. The controlled player is so non-responsive when running or moving, with or without the sprint button being used and it is not even close to having the feel of user control. It is almost as if you just aim the player and hope it works for you. Running backs consistently slam into the back of Olineman (something that was fixed in previous editions and is now messed up again) and even on the defensive side of the ball, at times players don't respond to controller demands as when to tackle and even when it does, it feel sluggish, stiff and unresponsive which leads to an extremely unsatisfying feeling of disgust when the game is over. Players don't interact with each other, they just slam into each other or "roll" into a predetermined coreographed action. It's as if ea is trying to create a movie with CGI and not trying to base a sport game off of physics. Players just run into each other and fall down constantly. The right stick has been eleminated on the offensive side of the ball because jukes and spins are literally a worse option than just doing nothing and on defense the hit stick is entirely dead. This all leads to a game that LOOKS great but handles terribly, and makes me feel like I'm not even in control. Menu deficiencies and server issues aside, the game itself is one of the worst Maddens I have ever played. My question is how can a sports game developer make a SPORTS game and not have player movement be responsive or even close to realistic?

[Darksterwolf]

Yes i have seen this. Players running the ball can just run into a player and fall down. I feel like we have no control its just take the hit and hope you stay on your feet. I think they are going for a visually stunning game then a simulation anymore. Some of the physics in this game is just down right stupid. They look like ragdolls most of the time.

[mlrgprogamer]

Running into blockers is usually a case of you not reading your blocks and defensive alignment correctly. Other times it's just your OLineman being bad at run blocking and the defender whoops him. They added quite a few keys to look for in Madden 16 and recognizing them is essential if you want to be efficient. Almost every run has multiple reads you need to pay attention to. This is covered in their tutorials. As a rule, I ALWAYS go through the tutorials to learn the game's new mechanics. This was very helpful in Madden 16. I still go back to them sometimes and relearn the keys and how to use each play/concept effectively. I actually learned things I never knew or bothered to pay attention to.

The physics are what they are. You can't ask them to make a perfect game. For the most part they did a really good job.

Not using jukes and spins is bad. They work just fine, you just can't attempt to juke a player half a yard in front of you anymore and have him miss everytime. Jukes and spins are deadly in the open field, and almost always work. The truck/hit stick mechanics are pretty bad though. It's like you can't truck anyone whose about to hit you, you literally have to time it perfectly or nothing will happen. For defense there's literally no point to use the hit stick, just hit X or square and call it a day. 

I've always been more despondent over the game's coverage issues. They're either too good or too weak. In Madden 15 Cover 3 was easily the worst coverage in the game, and now in Madden 16 it's so damn good most people just sit in it all game long. Sure every coverage has it's weakness, but when the only weakness is a route that gains 4-5 yards makes for an extremely boring game if all they do is call Cover 3. There are forms of Cover 3 that are impossible to throw anything down the seam or downfield due to smart user coverage and zone coverage not doing what it probably should.