I recently purchased a PS3, last time I played Madden was 06 I think and have never played online before. I joined an online franchise and I just suck, my offense struggles to score two Tds and my D can't get off the field, I'm getting my ass handed to me every game. The online franchise is pretty awesome btw besides the fact that I'm so terrible. Anyway, if anyone reads this forum and feels like sharing some secrets, I'll be listening.
you're not alone in your shame, Vision......ask posters like Mr.E, Jam., and Scik about my Madden playing skills.
Considering that you haven't played since '06, I'd say you have to get adjusted to the speed of the game first. When I used to play in our online league, I would throw errant passes. Now my game has gotten much better and I'm more relaxed knowing how fast the pass-rush is. With regards to the running game, don't hit the "sprint" button as soon as you hand the ball off. That will actually slow down ur RB. Allow him to build some momentum while you look for holes to open up or cutbacks.
The last time I religiously played Madden was Madden 05 on my PS2. I guess I'm pretty lucky in that I could go long periods of time without playing Madden, then play a random game with a friend, and still fare pretty well. This past winter I was with a bunch of my friends playing Madden, and my one buddy kept beating everyone with the Dolphins and the Wildcat. I played a match against him, chose the Jets, predominantly used the 46 bear package, and I annihilated him and rendered the pussycat null (just as the 46 was pretty successful for the 5 minutes Ryan used it in the MNF game this past season, before going away from it). I think my favorite Madden ever was 04 with Vick on the cover. That game seemed so smooth to me. I'm not gonna lie though--I played last year's version more than I've usually played the past few Madden games. It was definitely a step in the right direction.
Its ok, any time I play my friends who are all gods at madden, believe they can beat me at the show, then I just whoop their ass I think my madden skills would improve if I played against other people more. I havent had a system with online capability until now, so every time I would play another person who isnt the predictable computer I would get my ass kicked
use your whole playbook. EA has released some research on madden 10 and the average madden player uses 13 plays over the course of a normal game. if your only using 13 plays and trying to beat a competent human you will lose pretty much everytime. force yourself to control more than a d-lineman on defense. you will miss tackles and blow coverages at first but once you get a handle on controlling a LB or S the possibilities for your defense open up quite a bit. you also need to learn how to use defensive playmaker before the snap. you can highlight any player press a and bring up a ton of options to switch their assignment. you take blitzes that would never work and set them up to work correctly if you can manually move and reassign a few players before the snap. pretty much you just need to play and make an effort to figure out how to use all of the stuff you have at your disposal. it's overwhelming at first so just do one until you get the hang of it and then move onto something else.
I always use a defensive end or an outside linebacker to blitz. I've found that the key to blitzing is make sure you don't use the sprint button.
