And Back to Madden

The interesting thing about these early thoughts is that they can change. You learn things and adapt to how the game needs to be played. I am learning a few things about Madden.

Now, I told you about the clock management issues. Some games it's fine, some games not. I have no idea what triggers it but I do know that the designers are looking into it, which is a positive step.

I started a franchise today for the first time as all of my games before were Play Nows. I play 8 minute quarters and lost...12-7 to Dallas. Yep. 12-7. Here's what I am learning about the game:

The QB accuracy slider works better than I originally thought. I set mine to zero and did manage to throw a few very bad balls and was picked 4 times by the Cowboys. Now three of those were blatant mistakes by yours truly and the other was a REALLY bad throw by Anderson combined with a poor route by my #4 WR.

Still, the slider did its thing. I ended up something like 19/34 for 251 and the 4 picks. The accuracy suffers more on deeper passes, which I think is perfectly acceptable. Lewis ran 18 times for 80 yards. So on my side of the ball I thought it was a very well played and very believable game. The picks were high but like I said when the user throws into double coverage...hard to blame the game.

When the Cowboys had it at first it was a lot like the old games in Play Now mode. A lot of quick underneath passes. Then I started to watch the replays. It's the zones. The zone coverages are very lax, giving receivers way too much space and the AI takes what I give them--even when it shouldn't. (like on 3rd and long) From the 3rd quarter on I called nothing but straight up man to man coverages. Not the same defense but everything was Man.

Romo started throwing deeper. He missed throws. He was picked twice. He ended up 20/29 for 181.

Now the CPU still struggles with running (Barber was STONED all game long) but I think I can help by lowering by Shed Block slider because on default the CPU doesn't block too well and the Dallas line is no joke. So we'll see how that goes.

The next game I'll run all Man, mess with the Shed slider and see how it looks. I really, really wish EA had kept the CPU sliders in, but that Dallas game was pretty darn entertaining. And that sorta is the point to all of this, after all.