Madden NFL 10: First Look

Since I figured that you guys hate the game so much I'll post updates on new stuff.

http://www.operationsports.com/foru...og-player-ratings-new-philosophy-new-era.html

Hey guys, we thought it would be a perfect time to share something that I am personally very excited about for Madden NFL 10. We took each and every rating in the game (over 50+ player ratings) and scaled them up/down in a way that is now using much more of the scale. I like to describe it around the office like this…”We basically stretched out the ratings.” We want to use more of the numbers so we get a bigger, more noticeable affect in the game.

Let me give you guys an example….in Madden NFL 09 all of the WR’s Route Running ratings ranged from 62-99. In the current Madden NFL 10 build, WR’s now check in from 35-99. To counter this on the defensive side, all CB’s in Madden NFL 09 had a Man Coverage rating which ranged from 64-99. Now in Madden NFL 10, CB’s Man Coverage range is currently 40-99.

Every position and every rating has been re-scaled to expand the range of numbers we are dealing with. The Overall Rating for your average NFL player has dropped. Your Joe Average linebacker who was 80 OVR is now dropped down to 70. The players who were before right on the cusp of 90 in a rating category are now down around 85-88…Meaning, there are fewer superstar players out there. Before, where you could maybe get by throwing to your slot WR who had 93 SPD, with 74 ROUTES, and 77 Catching…now in Madden NFL 10, that guy is going to have like 91 SPD, 60-65 ROUTES and anywhere from 65-70 Catching. Let me tell you, these rating drops make a big difference when that slot rookie WR with 90+ speed now drops every 3rd pass or so, or just simply cannot get open.
The superstars have not been affected however, this is intentional. Peyton is still 99 OVR, Patrick Willis a 99, Larry Fitz is 99, etc. The elite players at rating categories have not been affected either (JaMarcus Russell still has a 98 Throw Power and Chris Johnson still rated 99 Speed). [Side note: One of my personal goals is to have the actual NFL players in Madden NFL 10 look like their real-life counterparts and play to their strengths and weaknesses like never before in a football video game.]

Speaking of the Speed, which is always a hot topic, we made some major changes with the infamous SPD rating as well. To give you a great example, I will again go back to WR and CB. In Madden NFL 09, the WR SPD range was 85-100…CB was 87-99.

In Madden NFL 10, WR SPD range is currently 70-100…CB is currently 75-99. So as you may or may not tell, the SPD range has been pushed down, in our opinions, to better reflect the “sim-gameplay” style that Ian and Phil have been telling you about all winter long. This SPD change has been updated for each position, so it makes a huge game play affect.

Ian and I had a game the other day where Earnest Graham broke one up the middle for a 55 yard touchdown run… and he could not be caught!…E-Grahams’ Madden NFL 10 current SPD rating….80 SPD. That should give you a good sense of what is possible with the new ratings. It’s not all about having the 90+ SPD anymore. On this particular run, Ian’s CB’s got hung up against some blockers and all I had to do was beat one safety and Graham was gone! He had Brandon Jacobs and his 85 SPD breaking some long runs as well. On the flip side of bigger/slower backs, Chris Johnson is absolutely lethal right now. You can actually get him outside with sweeps now and he is a beast to stop. But again, we are constantly tuning the gameplay, we have an entire team dedicated to that and they are some of the best people we have in the building.

So there you have it, player ratings are in for a major overhaul this year and I am really excited already with the impact they are having on the early builds of the game. And rest assured, we are well aware of the outside impacts this will have….Rookies will now come into the league based on the new ranges, NCAA Import guys are being tuned as well…Progression has been accounted for as well to better reflect breakout stars and burned-out former stars. Meaning, we want to have bigger jumps in OVR this year, both positive and negative. That’s all for now, probably gave away too much already!

Would love to hear any feedback about this big new change in the way we do player ratings. I’d be happy to answer any questions regarding the new rating ranges….please no individual ratings questions, not answering those! Stay tuned for more Madden player rating related blogs in the future!


- Donny Moore – Madden NFL 10 Designer

http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/16/quick-madden-nfl-10-update.aspx

Hey Madden fans, we’re back again with another (quick) update for Madden NFL 10. After talking about technology and philosophy for the past few weeks, we thought it was a good idea to actually show you a new feature this week. Now being that it’s so early in the year, we obviously can’t show big grandiose new features, so we wanted to show something that is in the game that came directly from community feedback and wishlists. It’s been a long time coming for this one...I’m stoked that we were finally able to get this in.

Our screens are in a very rough phase right now but we figured it’s no big deal to show you this screenshot to give away the new feature. I’m sure you’ll notice it right away.



-Ian

 

Other things that you guys might wanna help with.

http://www.operationsports.com/foru...-madden-10-pat-white-madden-04-mike-vick.html

Just got done creating Mr. Pat White from West Virginia and let me tell you, he is going to be a fun Madden 10 QB / HB / WR.

Right now, everything I'm reading has him trying to stay at Quarterback in the NFL. He wants to be drafted as a QB. How long before they convert him to a HB or WR, who knows. I just read another report saying that Pat White might be the next piece in the Wildcat puzzle, meaning he might be the next big thing for a team like Miami who runs a lot of Wildcat.

Will he be rated as good as Mike Vick in certain areas like Speed and Elusiveness? No, probably not. Vick was still a different type of animal. Whoops, sorry guys, poor choice of words....too soon?

But Pat White is still going to be nice - Speed, Elusive, Nice Arm Strength, great running abilities, Juke, Spin, etc. And yes, his throw accuracy will certainly hold him back from being some sort of monster in the game - he's not a pure passer type of QB by any means.

Just wanted you guys to get a heads up, Pat White is looking like a big time Madden 10 sleeper!

- Donny

PS - Creating the rookies is one of my favorite "tasks " of the year. I always know these rookie ratings are one of the most contraversial things in the world of player ratings, because these guys haven't proven it on the NFL field quite yet....What's cool is that this is probably the closest thing to an NFL scout before the draft! Bet those guys do similar things, break down each and every player and grade him numerically per category....bet we go deeper with our Madden ratings!

http://www.operationsports.com/foru...dden-nfl-10-tuning-individual-characters.html

This week we are starting to go through the rosters and tune each individual player's body to match their real life counter part.

I know as a fan when one of your favorite players is wrong it can take you out of the experience.

So the question to you is: Which players need the most work? Please give specifics. On the flip side are there any players you wouldn't touch?

Thanks as always,

Mike Y

 

http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/23/madden-nfl-10-improvements-to-qb-position.aspx

I'm back again folks, bringing you some more additions and improvements that you can expect to see in Madden NFL 10. This week, I'm going to focus primarily on the QB position and show some of the improvements we've made for this year. First off, I'm going to talk about a new animation technology that we can call "layered blending".

Layered Blending
"Layered blending? I thought you were going to talk about quarterbacks?" You'll see shortly how this works for QB's. First, a quick lesson on what blending is. Anytime a player transitions from one animation to another, he will use a 'blend' of his previous animation into the next animation. When you don't have a nice smooth blend, you'll get poppy / hitching animations. If you make blends that are too long, you can easily not have the correct amount of control over your player (he can feel very 'sluggish' or unresponsive). The most common types of blends are linear, ease in, and ease out. Those just refer to how many frames of either the previous or current animation you use while blending. For Madden NFL 10 though, we've added something new - the ability to actually separate the blends out between different parts of the body. We call this layered blending because it allows us to create different layered animation by blending one part of the body out quicker or slower based on the needs of the game. So how does it relate to QB's? Well, how often has this happened to you?

(Note these are Madden NFL 09 screenshots)

Pass animation starts Pass animation starts
Press the button to pass Sack animation starts, he tucks the ball away

I sure can't count on one hand how many times this has happened to me, and it's extremely frustrating, for hardcore and casual gamers alike. You hit the pass button, and you want to throw it! To try and alleviate this problem over the years, we've tried speeding up the release on pass animations, we've trimmed sack animations to be much tighter, as well as all sorts of other ways to make this problem go away. But this never quite solved it perfectly, and it inadvertently made our game a bit less realistic in the process. It's a tough problem though...when two animations start blending together, there was never really any other way around it.

I'm happy to report however that layered blending is the answer! When the sack animation starts, we can blend out the arm and shoulder of the QB at a MUCH slower rate to ensure that he gets the ball off. Here is a sample video of the tech in our ANT tool:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xX6160ETwc&eurl=http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/23/madden-nfl-10-improvements-to-qb-position.aspx&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Obviously we had to do this on an animation-by-animation basis...you don't want the QB throwing the ball when a player has him wrapped up on his throwing arm. Immediately as soon as the tech went in, we realized what a great "sim" element we could turn this into by creating a real risk-reward of trying to get the ball off vs. taking the sack. We totally alter the physics of the ball on release based on how hard the QB is hit while throwing, and how far into the throw animation he was when he was sacked. If you were one frame from releasing the ball when you're hit, then the ball may just come out with some slight wobble. If you are hit right after you started the wind-up, you can expect some wounded duck floaters going up in to the air for the defense to go swarm to. These make for some very dramatic moments, which is a must when you're trying to re-create the 'essence' of NFL football. The great part too is that now we can return all our passes to normal speeds and make the passing game feeling more realistic since we don't have to worry about the 'suction sack'.
(For the inquiring minds, we were able to put this technology into NCAA Football 10 as well!)


New QB Ratings
Our next big change for the QB position was the addition of some new ratings. For countless years we've basically had Throw Power, Throw Accuracy, and Awareness as the only ratings for the QB position, so it's very hard to differentiate the players correctly and have them perform more like their real-life counterparts with just those few. For example, a superstar like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning would previously have a very high Throw Accuracy rating like a 98, well that had to be the case for a 5 yard screen or a 65 yard heave! Here are our new ratings:

1. Deep Ball Accuracy: Determines the accuracy on deep passes (streaks, deep posts, etc)
2. Medium Passing Accuracy: Determines the accuracy on medium passes (outs, corners, etc)
3. Short Passing Accuracy: Determines the accuracy on short passes (quick smash, flats, etc)
4. Throw on the Run: Creates a modifier to accuracy when the QB is throwing on the run. Every QB will take some sort of accuracy hit when throwing on the run, but a QB that has a high rating here will take a smaller hit.
5. Play Action: Determines the 'effectiveness' of Play Action for a QB, i.e. how often they can fake out or freeze the defense (which is obviously weighted against the defenders Play Recognition ratings)

With Donny's new philosophy on ratings, the addition of these ratings immediately made the game play VERY differently than in years past. Chucking up the deep ball with a QB with high throw power but bad accuracy is definitely a recipe for disaster! We have recently been doing tuning to scale down these effects on the lower skill levels because QB's are way more inaccurate than you're used to seeing, and we felt this would be a little too hard to play for a casual player. Rest assured though, on All Pro and All Madden, we will have a much more realistic representation of accuracy for the QB's. I know I've read many times that in the past it seems that the only incomplete passes in Madden are either swatted, dropped, or intercepted...that is definitely no longer the case.

The other change that was made once we got in all these accuracy changes was to change our accuracy 'algorithm'. Previously there was a big circle that got drawn around the player and we picked a random point in that circle based on the rating check. However, you could get pretty unpredictable results in this system. I'll show you why in the case of an out route headed towards the sideline:



Even if we determined that it should be an inaccurate pass behind him, it could end up hitting the WR right in the numbers since he could slow down as the ball was released. So we changed this up to match more of a realistic system based on what an NFL QB would do. Here is the NEW system:



We implemented across the board based on the 'err on the side of caution' aspect. Good QB's will put the ball where only their receiver can get it, and bad QB's, well, they'll at least try to do that.

We also used this concept for precision passing. It always felt strange to be holding 'down' on a precision pass on a curl route, only to have the ball sail over the player's head. The new algorithm will err on the direction that you are holding...so if you are trying to throw it to low to a player on a quick smash, you would put it in the dirt (assuming that your QB's short accuracy rating determined the pass would be inaccurate). Eagles fans probably know this phenomenon all too well.

Well that's it for this week. We definitely feel these changes will really help make our game much more realistic and authentic, and also improve control, responsiveness, and even accessibility along with it. There are quite a few more improvements coming to the passing game and QB's in general, but it will be a little while until we release that information (as we aren't quite sure how far we're going to get yet).

We'd like to hear from you guys though! Some topics for discussion:

* What do you think we should rate your favorite QB in the new ratings above? Donny would love to hear it.
* Have any ideas of other places we could possibly use layered blending that we may not have thought of?

 

http://insideblog.easports.com/arch...nfl-10-improvements-to-wr-db-interaction.aspx

After that quick look at what's been discussed so far, now comes this week's installment: a focus on improvements made to the DB and WR positions.

As most folks already know, as a design team we've been very active on the forums recently (starting about a month or so before the Madden NFL 09 release). Within minutes of talking with the community it's easy to tell that one of the most common areas requested for improvement is DB/WR play. Obviously, we're listening to you, and here are just some of the other improvements and changes that you can expect to see in Madden NFL 10 come August.

Defensive Assignments / Matchups


This screen has some pretty broken stuff all over it, but what the heck, you guys can look at early software objectively right?

For any that aren't totally familiar with this feature, in a nutshell it allows you to assign a defender to ALWAYS shadow a specific receiver around the field. So if someone is moving Randy Moss all over the place and you can't keep track of him, then you can assign your best defender to always keep him covered. I am not really going to dwell on this feature too much as it did exist in the PS2/Xbox days, but I did want to mention that we finally have it back (and it sure feels good to have back). Also of note - this is a Madden only feature.

Route Running and Man Coverage
We've really spent quite a bit of time on the 'game within the game' of WR/DB interaction. There are two improvements that I'd like to expand on first (as I feel they are the most important), and both are animation related.

First, we replaced nearly every single receiver route animation in the game, with the goal of more accurately recreating real life acceleration and momentum. We are also utilizing the route running rating much more now when selecting these animations. We totally re-tuned which cut moves play (and how 'open' the WR gets) based on an elite/agile/non-agile separation in regards to that rating. Check out the video below - it should really show you what kind of difference this makes from 09 to 10:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t30-l1AU6gY&eurl=http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/28/madden-nfl-10-improvements-to-wr-db-interaction.aspx&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

We did basically the exact same thing for defensive reactions while in man coverage. This has allowed us to really re-work our man coverage AI to use animations as the true determination of how open the receiver gets. Before, there would typically be a time delay placed on the defender's reaction time based on his (and the receiver's) ratings. Now, we can specifically pick different animations to determine how fast he reacts, or whether he gets faked out or not. This creates a much more believable and realistic simuation of momentum. Here are two example cut moves for a defender backpedaling with the receiver in front of him:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUy0NCOM0Y4&eurl=http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/28/madden-nfl-10-improvements-to-wr-db-interaction.aspx&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Second, we took a page from the FIFA team and added in the concept of 'jostling'. Personally I am extremely stoked to have this in the game because I've written a design for it for 5+ years in a row...unfortunately we just never had the technology to accomplish it. The 'jostling' concept is a set of looping 2-man animations that can play for the WR and DB as they run downfield. The main reason that I am so big on these animations is that it really helps alleviate a balance problem that has existed in Madden for years. I'm talking about the fact that traditionally you can send a player with a 99 speed rating (regardless of his other ratings like route running, catching, etc) on a streak and easily get behind a defender in man coverage. In real life, regardless of the difference in speed, a good defensive back can use his body to keep the receiver in check... a fly route is rarely an untouched foot-race sprint to the endzone. So here's a video example of just one of the many jostling animations you can expect to see in Madden NFL 10:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYm4a4k4uxk&eurl=http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/28/madden-nfl-10-improvements-to-wr-db-interaction.aspx&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Adding these animations also allowed us the ability to call more realistic pass interference penalties. We've added a lot of variety that ranges from minor hand-fighting to severe push-offs and holds, so now we can make sure that pass interference gets called in a much more accurate manner. We're using the man coverage rating of the defender to determine how well he keeps the WR in check and how often he gets penalized.

Here are some other changes that have been made so far for route running:

* Added support for slip & fall receiver cut moves in bad weather (chances of slipping come from route running ratings)
* Re-factored all double moves to work correctly, including defensive cut moves that are companions to the WR cuts (chances of defender biting come from man coverage rating, play recognition rating, as well as boosts for correctly timed pump fakes)
* Added all new start play WR animations with more realistic acceleration (should be visible in the videos above)
* Added "pop" animations where say a LB will hit a WR as he comes across the middle through his zone

Press / Release
Another area that we thought needed definite improvements was in the battle between receivers and DB's at the line. Below is a list of all the fixes we've made so far:

* Deleted all previous chuck animations, re-added all newly captured ones from scratch
* Extended animation time drastically on chucks. Longer times not only mean smoother looking animations, but also more realistic reactions from WR's (i.e. they can't catch the ball while they are being chucked so you can't fire the ball over to them immediately and expect them to catch it as they aren't looking for the ball)
* Removed all animation compression on chucks to increase visual fidelity.
* Found and fixed an issue where the players wouldn't align properly during the chuck animation which used to cause some weird clipping through each other
* Fixed "suction" bug where press animations could start from like 5 yards away.
* Fixed a bug with zone / man chuck animations...in 09 the chucks for DB's in zone coverage looked just like chucks in man coverage.
* Re-factored the logic for win/loss on chucks based on the route the receiver wants to run. For example, if the WR wants to run inside (i.e. a post), and he "wins" the press, then he won't just pick an animation that beats the press, he'll pick one of many press beating animations that actually break inside. Likewise for defensive players...they'll push the player inside if they "win" the press in like a Cover 2 situation.
* Made it so chucks can now start from stand

Lastly, we've started to use Procedural Awareness (so far just as a purely visual thing). We recently got head tracking in pre-play for WR's so they now look in towards the ball at the snap. This has been long overdue. We also enabled Procedural Awareness head tracking for DB's. In man coverage they will directly 'track' the eyes of the WR, and in zone coverage they will track the QB's eyes, with the ability to also randomly swap targets based on proximity of guys entering their zone.

That's it for this week! We hope these updates and improvements are starting to really show everyone our vision for Madden NFL 10 - one of a true football simulation. For those that would like to know, the NCAA team took all of these improvements (except for the Defensive Matchups - that's Madden only) for NCAA Football 10.

As always, we want your feedback! Definitely let us know any other improvements you'd like to see in this area. We actually have some more improvements still planned to this area but we always want to hear your feedback and any ideas you may have.

Ian Cummings
Lead Designer, Madden NFL 10

 

http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/03/09/creating-sim-style-gameplay-in-madden-nfl-10.aspx

Creating 'Sim-Style' Gameplay in Madden NFL 10

From the very beginning of the year, we've tried to make clear our vision for Madden - one of authenticity, realism, & simulation (aka 'sim'). There is no doubt that we all want to turn this game into the most realistic version of Madden in history. This week I wanted to touch on some of the changes we've made (and struggles we've had) while trying to achieve this goal for Madden NFL 10. There are quite a few categories


-- Inconsistent Animation Speeds --
Over the course of the years, Madden has increased the speed of specific animations (and sets of animations) here and there across many areas. Typically, these are put in place to fix small bugs like times where maybe a handoff won't match up, or a situation where maybe the user doesn't have enough control. However, these small little changes can actually manifest upon themselves and actually cause pretty big issues in the game. VERY early in the cycle (like August) we committed to remove all these arbitrary speed alterations for Madden NFL 10, and truly fix the root issues that they were put in place to handle. As an example of a speed alteration gone wrong, below is a video showcasing exactly WHY the fullback dive is so effective...see below:

You'll notice that because the FB doesn't have a proper initial move animation, so in order for the handoff to work correctly the QB has to turn around at warp speed. This in turn makes it so the FB is already at the LOS before many players on the defensive side have even gotten out of their stances. The Madden 10 version shows how a simple fix (like a new initial move for the FB) can make this play into much less of an exploit and into a more realistic representation of the play. I can hear the tournament players everywhere cursing my name.

Another great example of how a relatively small speed alteration can blow up into a bigger issue is the speed of the QB drop-back. The QB drop was initially sped up because he was getting 'sucked' into sacks too easily if he took a normal dropback speed. This has been discussed often on the forums...though only the QB drop is altered to play faster, if the QB is set up too quickly, the timing of the routes cease to have as much importance, the blockers can't correctly form a pocket around you (since the DL are barely out of their stances while the QB is already set), and the passing game now has turned into a very unrealistic representation of the real sport. Well thanks our new blending technology (more details here, here), and all the time spent tuning the tolerances/distances for sack animations to trigger, we no longer have to worry about speeding the QB up to successfully get a play off. Here's a good comparison video of old vs. new:

P.S. hopefully you'll also notice the changes one of our animators made to the animation after feedback gathered in this thread [link]

It was an easy enough design decision within our team that all of those alterations had to go. The good thing with us all getting on the team early and being so far out in front of this...we were able to set everything back to zero and then fix any issues that arose with all the time we had in the cycle. In summary...
How Consistent Animation Speeds Affect Gameplay: Visual +15, Exploits -22, Realism +10

After removing all of these and finding some success in the way the game played, we figured we would go a bit bigger than just a few animation changes...so next we looked at pass speed and overall game speed.

-- Pass Speed --
Pass speed was something that was actually quite a bit over the top in previous years...did you know a typical bullet pass exceeded 77 mph in our game?! In Madden NFL 09, not only did every QB throw a similar bullet pass in mph regardless of their rating, but also every QB also threw "mini-punts" instead of touch passes (even on short and intermediate routes) due to the high speed of the ball upon release. Realistically, we can all agree that Brett Favre in his prime probably had the most zip on his passes, and he's been clocked around 65-70 mph (from what I saw on ESPN). So we brought the max mph down to 70 mph (for a 99 Throw Power guy in perfect weather), and also brought the minimum speed down as well so we could scale down the 'curve' of how the ratings affect the pass. Now for Madden NFL 10 you will see much more obvious disparity between throw power ratings, and also you will see much more "touch" on passes on shorter routes instead of record-setting hang time on lobs (see below).

How It Affects Gameplay: Disparity between QB's +10, Touch Passes + 22, Realism +10




-- Overall Game Speed --
After all of above changes were made, we all really were enjoying the way the game started to feel. It was much more realistic...and gave off a much less 'frantic' feel (if that makes sense). We had one more big area to tackle though - and that was GLOBAL game speed. While playing Madden NFL 09, often times you may have felt like the result of the play was "scripted"...everything happened so fast that it was often very difficult to have an influence on the outcome of the play. On running plays, holes closed up immediately. On passing plays, defensive backs came out of nowhere to deflect a pass. For Madden NFL Madden 10 we knew that we all preferred a slower game - one that felt more 'sim' and more realistic. But this is often a hotly contested topic. This poll proves that people never can seem to agree on game speed. So what did we do? Well first we decided to decrease the game speed by 5% overall. As subtle as that change to game speed may sound, it has drastically improved the overall control of the game. It is definitely easier to identify the hole created by the offensive line. Scanning the field as routes develop make it easier to keep passes out of harm's way. But we know that not everyone wants that style, so we also included a GAME SPEED SLIDER. Finally right? J
How Game Speed Changes (+ a Slider) Affects Gameplay: Control +7, Realism +10, Customization +7




-- Ratings Changes --
After Donny re-rated every player in the speed rating, and we had tuned our speed curves to truly make our game showcase the differences between the players, we were feeling pretty damn good. Being that speed was our biggest concern though, we wanted to check our sanity and tested some different player ratings and how fast each player (in a specific rating range) ran 40 yards in our game. These results will probably surprise you...they sure did us:


D'oh! Looks like we went a little too far! I think we can all agree that we won't be seeing too many folks running a 7.8 second 40 yard dash (video game developers might have those times, but not NFL athletes). This immediately brings to light the very real clash that can exist between fun and realism in sports games. We thought we were dead on - we thought the game felt great, was fun to play, and was really showcasing the differences between players. But when you look at the numbers, it obviously this proves that doing something that you feel makes the game more fun to play can differ quite greatly from a full realistic simulation. So what do we do? Well, first, we can't break our mantra...again, we're all for realism and authenticity in Madden NFL 10. But also we realize that we're making a game for millions of people, most of which are focused on a fun yet competitive experience, and many of them could probably care less about realistic 40 times. So what's our solution? Read on...

Within minutes of seeing these results, we knew right away that we needed to be able to tune the "speed difference" independently, and tune it per skill level. So our engineers built a nice system for us where we can compress this range however much we see fit, and also set the defaults for each skill level as well. You will see below that a good way to make Pro and Rookie difficulties a little easier is to spreads the ranges of speeds out, while on All-Pro / All-Madden we want to emulate real life as much as possible. We want you to boot up and say hello to Sundays in the NFL.

These numbers are very subject to change, but here's an example of the speed ranges based on the skill level:

NOTE: To be ultra clear, this is NOT the scale we use to determine the speed rating of a player! This showcases how fast a player runs 40 yards currently in our game based on the rating that he is given. Donny determines the actual speed ratings of the players based on many different factors...not just the 40 time of a player.

We also realized that you, the loyal Madden gamer, may not agree with these numbers. Many may believe that speeds should always be a constant, and difficulty should be handled in other ways (I sort of straddle that line myself). But to address everyone's concerns, we just went ahead and exposed our tuning values into a "speed differential" slider into gameplay settings. If you want to play on Pro mode but want all of the players to have more realistic speeds, you can do so. If you want to play on All-Madden but want the really fast players to truly feel faster than everyone else, you can do that as well. That way hopefully everyone can be happy.
How Realistic Player Speeds Affect Gameplay: Overall Gameplay + 10


So, that's it for this week! Whew.

- Ian Cummings
Lead Designer, Madden NFL 10

 

http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/03/16/player-momentum-in-madden-nfl-10.aspx

Hey Madden fans, it's that time again...time for another weekly blog update! Last week, I shared some of the details around the successes and challenges we've had in trying to create simulation gameplay for Madden NFL 10 [link]. To be clear, 'simulation' gameplay isn't new - IMO it's what put EA SPORTS (and Madden) on the map in the early 90's after all.

Well this week we wanted to touch on one of the biggest aspects in creating an NFL sim, and as you might expect, this is also usually most difficult to get to an area where it still 'feels right'. That aspect is Player Momentum. Creating momentum in a football game is typically handled in many different ways, so today I'm going to just touch on one key area (and leave other topics for future weeks).


Turn Rates
Simply put, you can consider the "turn rate" of a player the amount of width it takes him to run in a complete circle (at varying speeds). By a 'circle', I don't mean a spin move, I mean running in a full circle. Obviously a player running at top speed will 'carve' a very wide circle, while a player walking or jogging can complete that circle in a very tiny radius. Inevitably, if you try to run at top speed but still make the circle tighter, you will have to slow down (think about the speed a baseball player loses as he has to come around 3rd base). This turn rate also varies quite a bit on the athletic ability of the player. A player like Darren Sproles can maintain a much higher top speed while turning than say Brandon Jacobs.

With that description out of the way, how does that apply to Madden NFL 10? Well, as most should know by now we are really pushing for an authentic and realistic experience, so we have obviously been pushing to create more realistic turn rates for all of our players. Before we even started changing things for this year though, we did a bit of a case study on some of our previous games. We tested how many yards it took an agile player (Tomlinson for example) running at full speed to curve / turn and face 90 degrees towards the sideline. Check out the result video below:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrWuVtTDvd0[/youtube]

Here are the results:
- Madden NFL 2006 (PS2): ~5 yards
- Madden NFL 08 (X360): ~1 yard
- Madden NFL 09 (X360): ~1 yard

We looked closely at NFL game film to try and find real numbers, but even without watching any film it was pretty obvious that even the most agile of players cannot curve (or plant) to turn 90 degrees within 1 yard when at top speed, so we tuned the entire system down a bit. Here is a video showing some of the new Madden NFL 10 'turn rates' in action for the ballcarrier in the ANT tool:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuQyg_RfqgY[/youtube]

It's not the best video since you don't have yard markers, but his average distance to turn 90 degrees is anywhere from ~4 to 9 yards. As you might expect, we hooked the agility rating directly into this turn rate to scale up and down within that range. Hopefully you can see right away that the player feels like he has a lot more 'weight'...which is definitely what we are going for this year.


These values are also shared with defenders. We really wanted to get rid of that feeling of 'twitch' movement for players on defense, and make their movements much more deliberate. Check out this video of a defender's turn rate compared between Madden NFL 09 and Madden NFL 10:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjI4lYBx3xE[/youtube]

Not only should you notice the differences in turn rates, you should also see a lot more 'momentum' in the Madden NFL 10 version, including acceleration, deceleration, and even planting. We'll talk about that more later in the year though, mainly because we are still heavily tuning it so I don't exactly know what to tell everyone yet.

Though these changes to make the game more realistic may seem small on the surface to some, we are really excited about making them because they truly have a serious effect on how you play the game. More than ever, you will see many differences between players on the field, and you'll feel those differences in your hand while controlling them. It adds a whole new layer of strategy and realism to the game knowing that if the QB throws a perfect pass and you are out of position, you can't stop on a dime and go make a play. The same goes for offense - you have to be much more patient and deliberate to succeed. You need to read your blockers, wait for holes to open up, and stop holding the sprint button the entire time if you want to successfully run the ball. These changes, along with the game speed changes, have made major strides in giving Madden that extra layer of a 'thinking man's game'. For the future vision of Madden, we want a football coach that's never played Madden before to be able to take down a Madden Challenge competitor...and these are some of the steps to get us to that goal.

It's been a busy week for us this week having deliverables, milestones, reviews, and the like, but we hope you enjoy what we've got cooking so far. As always, sound off with what you'd like to see when it comes to momentum, turn rates, locomotion, or anything else related to player control...looking forward to your feedback!

- Ian Cummings
Lead Designer, Madden NFL 10

 

http://itsinthegame.ea.com/archive/2009/03/23/fight-for-every-yard.aspx

For several weeks now, we've been getting a great response for our Madden NFL 10 producer blogs, where the development team has been going deep on things like procedural awareness, improvements to the QB, tuning being done to the wide receivers and DBs, and more. I hope you've been enjoying the level of engagement the team is offering up. If you're a Madden fan, and have any questions about the game in development, I urge you to visit the blogs and engage with the team.

For those following along, hopefully it's already apparent that as we close the books on an incredible two decades of Madden NFL football that we're ushering in an exciting new era for the game with the most detailed and comprehensive edition of Madden in the history of the franchise. We're hitting the real sweet spot of development for this generation of consoles as the team is really hitting its stride in squeezing every ounce of power and capability from the hardware. In fact, the Madden team is taking such dramatic strides this year that we're in the position to go deep on features and details earlier than we've ever done before.

While we have a number of announcements and updates to come over the next several weeks leading up to next month's NFL Draft, I'm excited to debut the first screenshot from this year's game right here this week. The old adage says, "A picture is worth a thousand words", and that is certainly true in this fantastic shot. How many improvements can you pick out? The Madden dev team will call each one out in their blog later this week.



Over the next several weeks you're going to be hearing more about how this year's game is going to continue to push the boundaries of authenticity in gameplay, presentation, and art style. It's the fight for every yard in the NFL that makes the battles playing out on Sundays throughout the fall and winter so compelling. From everything I have seen in Madden NFL 10 so far this year, the authenticity of gameplay is showing striking improvement in physics, realism and responsiveness. Having recently sat through a full product review from our team in Orlando, it's abundantly clear that this could be the deepest, most graphically-rich Madden ever, and a stunning testament to the talented development team who have had a maniacal focus delivering a landmark title to Madden Nation in 2009.

Of course, now's usually a good time of year for the debate to begin raging about who will be on the cover of this year's game. I've probably been asked a couple of dozen times already over the past month in interviews. You're not going to get any hints here from me (or are you?), but soon we'll begin highlighting a number of fine candidates who represent that fight for every yard as we build up to late April's announcement.

I know who I want to see...but who would you choose?

Cheers,

Peter

 

Click the link for the images
http://insideblog.easports.com/arch...-quot-the-first-madden-nfl-10-screenshot.aspx

Two days ago, Peter Moore released the first official Madden NFL 10 screenshot on his blog [link]. These are pretty exciting times for the community and for us on the development team. For us it is a chance to see what the community thinks of our hard work to this point.

Some of you may know me from last year, but if not, I'm Michael Young, the Art Director for Madden NFL 10 and NCAA Football 10. I'm in my second season as Art Director for Madden NFL and first on NCAA. I'm also an avid sports photographer, and through my roles on Madden and NBA Street, I have been able to shoot some amazing events from the sidelines of big time sporting events, including Super Bowl XLIII. In today's blog, I'm going to go to really dive into some detail on one of our new features that you likely will have noticed right off the bat: Depth of Field. In addition, I will talk about the 9 other Madden NFL 10 enhancements shown in the shot unveiled on Peter's blog.




Ben Roethlisberger scans the field looking to pass in Super Bowl XLIII. Can you find all 10 Madden NFL 10 upgrades?



Depth of Field
For Madden NFL 10 and NCAA Football 10 we have an all new realistic Depth of Field system calibrated to match real world cameras. This single enhancement not only improves the visual quality of the game but it will allow us to reproduce a broadcast experience unlike ever before.

What is depth of field (DOF)?
DOF is a film/photography term used to describe the part of an image that appears sharp or in focus. In the image below Adrian Peterson is within the DOF thus appears to be sharp while the players in pursuit appear soft. These blurred or fuzzy areas are referred to as Bokeh. Notice how this bokeh allows the viewer to clearly isolate Peterson from the rest of the pack.


A shot I took of Adrian Peterson as he broke away for one of his two TDs against the Eagles in their 2009 playoff matchup.



How it Works:
The DOF is determined by 3 factors: The subjects distance to the lens, the lens focal length (In general terms how wide or zoomed in you are), and the lens aperture. In previous Madden's none of these were factored into determining the DOF.

Madden NFL 08 was the last time we feature DOF in the game, and there was simply a fixed point in space with everything beyond it being simply 'blurred'. See image below.

In Madden NFL 10, there is now both a near and far plane. In addition, the near and far plane will dynamically adjust based on the subject's distance to the lens, the focal length, and the aperture. See image below:

When designing this effect, what we wanted was to build a camera model so that anyone on the team (regardless of their knowledge of cameras) could create a shot and the DOF would 'just work' in a real and believable way. In real life a photographer doesn't build the camera before he or she can take pictures right? What we had done for years in our games was develop tools that allowed people to essentially tweak the insides of the camera, even if they had no idea what they were doing. This unintentionally allowed people to create cameras that just felt wrong. One of the most common things seen in games is the over use of narrow DOF, which I'll illustrate in the images below. The first is of a cityscape. On the right is the original photo, and on the left is what happens when DOF is too narrow. The image on the left is altered and feels wrong - the narrow DOF his essentially makes everything look like miniatures. The next image is of Madden NFL 08, which suffers from the same issue. The players portray more of an action figure feel, than that of large NFL players.


An example of unnatural use of DOF. An effect referred to as tilt shift lens, simulated here in Photoshop.


Madden NFL 08 with unnatural DOF. The players and stadium feel like miniatures.

To avoid these pitfalls and get our DOF system correct we put together a library of real world tests that we shot at NFL games. Shooting the reference ourselves allowed us to understand exactly what we were looking at back at the studio. Once the charts were created, our amazing programmer Andre Pham calibrated our in-game system to match each instance. From there he was able to generate formulas and algorithms to drive the dynamics of the system.


Pictured is Madden senior lighter and fellow photo buff Jeff Ostergaard on one of our many research trips to NFL games.

The diagrams below show the effects of focal length and subject distance to lens on DOF. Notice that the further away the subject is from the lens the larger the DOF (larger area appearing in focus). In the above chart you can see that shooting a subject that is 10 yards away (With the same focal length) has a more narrow DOF than shooting a subject 30 yards away.

A lens can focus at only one distance and the sharpness will gradually falloff on both sides of the focus distance. In Madden and NCAA this gradual falloff to the blur effect mimics what one would expect in a real camera. In past implementations of DOF there was no concept of varying amounts of blur.


A graphical representation of the gradual falloff of DOF in Madden NFL 10.


A visual representation of the gradual falloff of DOF in NCAA Football 10.

Below you can see a study on the effects of getting the same framing using the same f-stop, but getting two dramatically different DOF sizes based on distance to the lens and the focal length.



Benefits:
Depth of Field helps direct the eye - making busy and distracting shots appear ordered. Artists often use a narrow DOF to remove the subject from distracting background elements. Check out the following shots to see an example of how DOF can improve an otherwise busy shot.


For years we have avoided telephoto focal lengths in our cameras - post play especially - to avoid these very messy images. Unfortunately a large portion of broadcast cameras are very telephoto. Now with our DOF we can match broadcast cameras and create more visually appealing shots in both NCAA Football 10 and Madden NFL 10.



Other Improvements Explained

Single Digit Helmet #s
We have added the ability to center single digit #s on our helmets. Although a small touch, I know Steeler Nation (Including myself) will sleep well knowing Big Ben's helmet is accurate in the game. Ian was happy that we have the Giants correctly emulating this as well.

Super Bowl Patches
Teams will wear Super Bowl patches on their jerseys for the big game, whether you are reliving Super Bowl XLIII or in year 30 of your franchise.

Custom Super Bowl Fields
Utilizing the same tech as NCAA for custom bowl endzones and field art, Madden NFL 10 features team specific end zones, midfield logos, and player boxes that are dynamically configured whether you are reliving Super Bowl XLIII, or in year 30 of your franchise.

Towels
Authentic player towels are in and fully animating, complete with Wilson and NFL Equipment logos. They can be assigned to any player, but can not be moved to the middle of the body (unfortunately due to major clipping issues that were occurring).

Referees on the Field
Unlike last-gen which only had 5, we were able to get all 7 referees in to Madden NFL 10 with AI and a full suite of avoidance (and collision) animations.

Chain Gang on the Sidelines
Because you see it on Sunday, the chain gang has been added back. They dynamically move up and down the sideline giving clear indication of the first down spot and line of scrimmage.

Steelers Don't Wear Captains Patches
And they won't in our game either. Same goes for the Cowboys.

Secondary Color Equipment
Each player will be tagged with the proper color gear. Santonio Holmes wears yellow gloves, so expect him in yellow gloves.

Better Nameplates
Since Madden NFL 06, the letters on the back of the jerseys have all been somewhat squished to account for longer names like Houshmanzadeh. This has been fixed with a new dynamic sizing algorithm, so all names now look correct.



Lastly, we saw a lot of feedback about people thinking that Roethlisberger wasn't quite big enough. So, we made a quick pass and tuned him up a little bit - things like shoulder pads, arms, chest, etc. So here it is - a bigger, better "Big Ben".


I've revealed 10 Madden NFL 10 enhancements here, but there are even more improvements in the shot that we aren't quite ready to talk about.

As you can see we are very serious about getting to those little details. Our feeling is that every single player is probably someone's favorite, so if we get that character wrong in any way, the Madden experience is less than what it could be for that fan.

Hopefully you have enjoyed reading about DOF and the other enhancements. As Ian has said in past blogs, "Everything you see on Sunday, see it in Madden NFL"...cameras are no exception.

Thanks for reading,

Michael Young
Art director, Madden and NCAA Football

 

An NCAA update which will affect Madden in some form. Other pics at site.
http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/03/24/ncaa-football-10-pocket-protection.aspx

Quick note before I get into the shots below; this is not the official post for NCAA Football 10 this week. Expect another drop of information really soon.

Hey NCAA Football Fans I wanted to jump in and show some work being done with the Offensive/Defensive Line play. Rather than just a bunch of stuff I read, figured it would be better to post some shots and comment a little on each one.

Well there you have it, a full pocket. You can see that both Offensive Tackles (OT) were able to ride the Defensive Ends (DE) or Linebackers (LB) out wide behind the Quarterback (QB) instead of just standing them straight up. This year we are giving the Tackles the ability to take a Defensive End wide around the QB in a realistic fashion.

First look at the right side of the line:



Here is a close up view of the LB being strung out wide by an OT; you can see the body lean as the LB is trying to get around the OT using a speed rush. Instead of being pushed once or twice and standing still you’ll notice the interaction between the OT and DE (or LB) play out in a more natural sequence.

Now let’s take a look at the other side of the line and the different rush style:

This example is showing an attempt to use a bull rush and muscle his way to the QB; however the OT is able to keep the DE at bay. And like on the other side of the line push him out wide to help create that pocket from the first screen shot.

All the above shots are from the same play to give an example of how things are progressing on the NCAA Football 10 game-play front. And before you ask this does mean we are working on the ability of the Defensive Line to get to the QB as well:

The edge rusher in this case was able to make a move back inside. Sorry to ruin the suspense… it ended in a sack.

We are still in the process of working how often the defender vs. the offensive line will win. Like how much does Finesse Moves factor against Pass Block Footwork? Or how often will AI defenders attempt special moves? And a number of other tuning issues. It is a high priority to the team right now to ensure our line play is balanced on both sides of the ball.

That is all for today... Check back in a few days for this week’s NCAA Football 10 Blog.

Russell Kiniry – Designer NCAA Football 10

 

*bzzt* wrong, the cover boy will be a RB since the slogan for 10 is "Fight for every yard".

Yeah fuck realism . Since you like 2k baseball you hate Madden 10 since it's based on a Sim experience rather than arcade.