3 Legacy Issues that if fixed would reduce number of haters
EA_Kent ...I've bought the last 25 years worth of Madden and when available the NCAA/College football games. There are 3 issues that have been around for Madden and now in CFB for 5+ years that I think if fixed would actually be positive enough that not so many people would have such a visceral response to EA football games. My list with explanation is below:
- Fix the Teammate AI on Defense
We have experienced this a number of years for Madden but it is more apparent in CFB because of how big a gap can exist in overall ratings for players. Basically, Teammate pass D needs to be more reflective of their rating and needs to more closely follow CPU AI pass D. Here's what I mean. The EXTREME majority of people who play this game will take a 99 overall Defense with 90+ rating for all Secondary and Coverage LB players and will see an FCS QB throw for 80%+ and 3-4 TDs. This is reflective on the Teammate AI. To test that, I recently played an entire game with that type of D against an FCS and I player locked as a D-Lineman the whole game and sure enough, those were pretty close to the FCS stats. I get that EA wants to reward User skills but they shouldn't diminish Teammate AI this aggressively. Quite frankly, it's unrealistic to expect a User can easily switch multiple times a play to a Defender that's well positioned with enough time to input the correct action. Even if that is the expectation, those defenders are almost always out of position anyways when the switch is made so there's literally nothing for the player to do at that point but watch another completion or TD. There needs to be an opportunity for the Teammate AI to make the play on their own. It should more closely resemble CPU AI. Heisman as an example, I as a QB have to go through my progressions, make good reads, and get the ball out quickly when facing a blitz. While blitzing has improved on User D this year, there is still a major gap on Teammate AI pass coverage no matter what is done to sliders or pre-snap adjustments and it's leading to more and more people admitting online that they SuperSim the Defensive side of the ball when playing against the CPU. That makes the game very boring and increases the number of haters on this game. I'm fine increasing the CPU's level of play on Heisman but it should not be coupled by diminishing the skills and ratings of teammate AI. There are even conspiracy theory posts on Reddit of people claiming they know developers who claim they won't even test the game on Heisman because they know this is the way the D is programmed. That should be patched ASAP on both games and never return to the current system.
2. Patch the CPU's use of illegal contact/defensive holding
This has been going on with Madden and now CFB for 3 or 4 years. Almost anyone who plays the game experiences this multiple times a season. You'll have a receiver who is running a route and the read is there but when you start to hold the icon, a defender covering a different receiver will "accidentally" run into your open receiver causing their teammate to be in perfect position for a pick. In every league, that's 5 yards and an automatic first down but in Madden and CFB, it's a glitch that's never been fixed. Penalties overall need to be overhauled (not even sure why I hard count at this point cause it never works) but this is by far the worst. The CPU already makes the users pay for bad reads with picks plus now we have this over programmed tip drill this year. I'm fine with those cause those can be countered with user skill. This comes off as the AI cheating the player
3. Allow for protection changes on running plays too
This goes a little to Teammate AI but instead of overhauling it, just let players make more changes to blocking schemes on running plays. You look at the pre-snap blocking and you'll have a 90+ Center and a 90+ Guard in a double team on a low rated DT and no body assigned to the Mike or Sam, except sometimes an out of position TE. ID the Mike doesn't really do much to fix that. You should be allowed to command to Guard to allow the Center to go 1 on 1 and the Guard to target the LBs instead. Running has been significantly improved but there are still way too many backfield blow ups by substandard LBs due to this mechanic allowing them to shoot the gaps untouched
Hopefully like you all promoted this year you do take our feedback to heart cause I know when I see a lot of complaints online, they typically fall into these 3 categories. Please fix these