Madden NFL 15 Hype Train

First topic message reminder :

EA has finally broken their silence on Madden NFL 15.  Madden NFL 25 was abysmal, let's see if EA can balance the game out.

EA Press Release
>> Noted features mentioned:

• Immersive defensive gameplay
  
• Dramatic all-new camera angles
  
• New pre-game and halftime features
  

Cover vote
>> The cover vote will be revealed May 8th during the NFL Draft. (link)

Pre-Orders
$15 in MUT Pro Packs.
>> GameStop Exclusive: Futuristic Stadium (MUT Mode only)
>>>> *GameStop exclusive may not be included in the Ultimate Edition.

Ultimate Edition
$40 in MUT Packs.
Receive 30 Madden Ultimate Team Pro Packs featuring NFL super stars of the past and present. Packs are distributed 3 packs per week for 10 weeks. In addition, receive the exclusive Draft Class Pack that includes 10 of the first round draft picks from the 2014 NFL Draft

Feature reveals
Catching & Pass Variety | EA Sports
War in the Trenches 2.0 | EA Sports
Player Sense 2.0 | EA Sports
Tackling Mechanics | EA Sports | IGN
Playcalling Mechanics | EA Sports
Presentation Updates | EA Sports | Polygon
Graphics | EA Sports

EA broke news about CFM during a Google Hangouts interview.

Confidence Rating:

• Is now a 1-99 rating.
  
• No longer a "hot or cold streak" impact on players as before.
  
• Dynamic rating that fluctuates from time to time.
  
• Can change based on winning/losing games, playing well/playing poorly, trading high rated players will weaken multiple players, drafting/signing a stud player can impact the incumbent starter if their depth chart spot is threatened.
  
• 50 rating is normal confidence ratings, and everyone starts at 50.
  
• Key ratings drop when confidence drops too low. Likewise, key ratings go up when confidence rises.
  
• CPU teams have the AI logic to decide if they're rebuilding, or if they have a chance at the playoffs when planning their Game Prep choices.
  
• Confidence never resets. So all moves can hinder/help the team at all times.
  

Game Prep:

• You can focus long-term, getting backups and young guys more reps and XP. Short-term would then focus on key starters and help keep their confidence high.
  
• Can be quick, make 5 choices in seconds before a game.
  
• Can be very involved, run drills to gain better confidence multipliers for achievements.
  
• AI can be allowed to sim game prep.
  
• Individual player drills are available now.
  
• Hours are realistically capped. Playing on Monday night will shorten your available hours for development before your next game.
  

Draft Classes

• Everything about every player is randomized (height, weight, schools, skills).
  
• Draft classes reconfirmed to be impossible to write a draft guide for because of this.
  
• Draft class stories will still be showing up throughout the year.
  
• Editing draft classes not allowed. No importing of other people's draft classes.
  

Commissioner Tools

• Multiple Sub-Commissioners now allowed!
  
• Termed Auto-Pilots: Can set a guy for a number of weeks or indefinitely.
  
• Nothing else mentioned, (would love to be able to reset games like in NCAA).
  
• Commissioner can sim multiple games in advance. Can sim to specific game week, scenario (playoffs, Super Bowl, free agency, etc.), or sim multiple seasons all at once (like 10 years).
  

Team Relocation

• 153 uniform choices for relocated teams.
  
• New team names.
  
• New team logos.
  
• Can restrict CPU team relocation, and still allow them to rebuild their stadiums if needed.
  

Miscellaneous

• Depth Charts: will require a new minimum number of players at each position before being allowed in game as previously it caused injury bugs that could be exploited.
  
• Player Careers: The experience playing as an individual player overhauled to make it more entertaining and eliminate nonsense plays like holding for kicks.
  
• Free Agency: Each player has a ranking of what they're looking for. Money is no longer everything. Might not sign with a team who already has a ton of depth at their position for example.
  
• Owner Mode: Every individual product you sell was tuned to have its own sweet spot. More difficult. Need money to keep fans happy and attendance up, improve stadiums, rebuild stadiums, etc.
  
• Spending XP: Can buy multiple player upgrades all at once to speed up the process.
  
• Progression/Regression: Can see how much older players are regressing now.
  
• Weekly Goals: Based on depth chart, starters with higher goals. Goals are dynamic to scenario: Pre-Season games will have less goals versus regular season and playoff goals. Coaching goals redid to spice up gameplay.
  
• Injured Reserve: Can take players that heal early off of IR and restore their roster spot.
  
• Pro Bowl: "Legends" will be Pro Bowl captains and draft Pro Bowl rosters.
  
• Staffing: You can hire/fire staff (coaches, trainers, scouts) during season.
  
• Jerseys: CPU teams can choose to wear alternate uniforms.
  
• Player Schemes: In game depth chart now shows the same rating as what you see out of game.
  

The Madden 15 demo is rumored to be coming out on 08/12/14. It was announced but not yet confirmed.

Shopmaster posted some info about the Confidence rating.  If utilized correctly, it should really balance out play-calling and roster balance/makeup when building a team.

Shopmaster | MyMaddenPad.com

PastaPadre mentioned that Madden 15's demo is most likely not happening Tuesday. While he provides no evidence, he did hypothesize  that EA may be leveraging a lack of a demo, or holding a demo to the last minute to get people to sign up for EA Access on XBox One to get full early access instead.

Should that be true, shady EA, for shame.

All playbooks have been revealed.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Any favorites? For the first time I might use the Bears playbook as a default.

The guy is a bit clueless, but it's a great intro to everyone's first few moments when firing up the game.

Spreadsheet:
Offensive and Defensive formations by team playbook.

Link

the_EDJ wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Jay Cutler days to Madden 15.

Mother of God, please make this your avi.  That's all I ask.

The first reviews rolled out:
Polygon | 9.0 / 10
IGN | 8.7 / 10
Games Radar | 4 / 5 Stars
Game Informer | 8 / 10
Operation Sports | 7.5 / 10
SportsGamerShow 9 / 10

IGN | In Progress Impressions
Operation Sports | First Impressions

OpSports wrote:Pros

• Defense is fun again — There are multiple mini games you can now effectively partake in on each play on defense. Beating the OL is a timing mini-game of sorts which requires you to jump the snap and then make an effectively timed and directionally smart move to get to the QB. You can tell when you are facing an elite OT, because he will feel like a brick wall on many/most plays.
• Quarterbacks feel different — I don’t have enough info to safely say the pass accuracy is fixed, but playing Peyton Manning feels like you are playing a more elite level QB versus, say a Matt Cassel. Defensively, I found that it was even more of a rush to get to the QB when he was better, because you knew he was going to make decisions faster.
• Good news, the tackle cone doesn’t suck — From my initial play-sessions with Madden, it appears the tackle cone is not a major in your face type of addition many feared. The new tackling system adds a risk/reward setup to what used to be a very boring aspect of the game.
• Defenders are smarter — Zone defenders are much smarter this year, with players reacting to the ball much faster resulting in much narrower throwing lanes. This is going to make a lot of people used to soft zones very angry initially.
• The New Connected Franchise Options Are Great — Setting up a weekly gameplan or repairing your team’s busted up confidence is such a great series of decisions to have to make each week. Alex Smith had a horrible game against the Broncos and his confidence sank, so I had to spend valuable preparation points to raise his confidence back up. These are the things you don’t see in the NFL, but things coaches have to do to ensure players are at the top of their game.
• Community Playcalling is surprisingly good — The playcalling feature which I thought was nothing more than a gimmick actually seems to be pretty good at both conveying information that you would find relevant in both how users and how you use it. It makes the whole experience feel more connected.
• Thank goodness for the new cameras — Seriously, the new cameras and how they've been implemented (fast switching) is something which should be universal in sports games. It's that good -- it doesn't hurt the camera angles themselves are quite good, including the new over the shoulder defensive angle you can switch to on defense. Major kudos EA.
• The graphics, audio, and in-game broadcast presentation have arrived — It has long been a dream to have Madden look and feel like the rest of the major sports games in our genre, it always lagged behind. This year, at least to me, I feel like the presentation and graphics are both up there with anything you can find on store shelves today. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely gotten to a point where it’s clearly quite good.

Cons

• The playcalling menus really need to quit defaulting to the community playcall screen — I swear the amount of manpower and hours I’m going to spend backing up one menu layer to get to my preferred playcalling screen is going to make me sad. Bonus points for the playcalling menus not having that weird lag where I literally miss my option a lot.
• QBs may still be too accurate out of the box — I need to run more tests, but I’m pretty sure QBs may be more accurate out of the box than realism would suggest is possible. The good news is, slider combinations are going to fix this largely.
• The game’s first boot takes too long to get to action you care about — We can do without this nonsense.
• The new kick meter is hit or miss — At first, I actually missed a couple of field goals, but now I seem to be automatic again. I need to test this out more.

Initial Thoughts

Thus far, Madden NFL 15 is really shaping up great. I still have a lot to check out within the game before I end up posting my final review. However, my initial thoughts are pretty strongly in favor of this year’s Madden. This is still Madden football, just a better and more true to life version of it. It’s too early whether to say Madden belongs amongst the discussion with the traditional great games in our genre, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t tempting to suggest its possible at this point.

Look for my full review in a day or two here on OS. Madden NFL 15 releases later today (noon) for EA Access users in a limited six-hour demo, and will be out next Tuesday in stores.

The Operation Sports review was posted today. I added it to the group of links above.

I've added IGN's review to the list above.

PastaPadre | Top Likes and Dislikes

Prior to review, Pasta listed his early impressions.  His explanations are on the site.

Top Likes
Defensive Camera Angle and Camera Switching on the Fly
Defensive Line Controls
Balanced Gameplay 

Greater Player Differentiation 

Community Play Suggestions

Top Dislikes
CPU QB Efficiency
Inability to Take Deep Shots with One-on-One Coverage
No-Huddle Offense Moves Way Too Fast
Problems With Official Reviews and Challenges
Commentary and Franchise Presentation

EA Sports | [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Connects you to MUT, Connected Franchise, CoachGlass, and more.

Should release soon for Android and iOS.

Another review to add to the list:

Polygon | 9.0 / 10

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Create your own stupid (stupid awesome?) Madden GIFs

The Madden Companion app is live, and it's basically a big joke. Too bad. It does offer ways to interact with CFM, MUT, and Coachglass, but it's really just a bunch of links to a built-in web-browser or other EA crapware. Weak effort EA.

Android version
iTunes version

The latest Madden patch is live. Suh-weeeet!

PS4 CHANGES (The biggies in bold)
– Fixed or enhanced multiple team uniforms
– Added tuning adjustments to offline Connected Franchise Mode matching Online
– Added a “Slim” Play Call option (I'm guessing if you don't want to know the community success rate for that play in that situation?)
– Added the ability to button through the entire halftime presentation
– Added button prompt to defensive play call to inform the user they can back out to pick their play before the offense does
– Tuned down QB accuracy for lower tiered QB’s, especially on passes under 10 yards (This is good)
– Addressed issue where formation name would not update during no huddle situations
– Improved line shifting functionality out of defensive camera
– Defensive Play Call timer has been extended to 15 seconds
– Addressed issue where users only had 10 seconds to call a play vs. the AI
– Improved defensive adaptive AI (Game might get tougher...)
– Added QB signature passing styles
– Addressed issue where reading keys against read option wasn’t working on All-Madden
– Added logic for receivers that prevents wrong animation triggering during catchable passes
– Added logic to prevent multiple ways of grieving during online games
– Improved logic in CFM when determining who the starting RT should be
– Addressed an issue where the user would fail when punting the ball out of bounds on the Medium Coffin Corner drill
– Addressed exploit where users put WR’s at TE position on depth chart inside of MUT
– General improvements to Madden Messenger
– General improvements to commentary logic
– Multiple CoachGlass improvements
– Fixed an issue where the user’s play would sometimes be auto-selected on defense



They didn't forget you PS3 users either.

PS3 CHANGES
– Added tuning adjustments to offline Connected Franchise Mode matching Online
– Added the ability to button through the entire halftime presentation
– Added button prompt to defensive play call to inform the user they can back out to pick their play before the offense does
– Tuned down QB accuracy for lower tiered QB’s, especially on passes under 10 yards
– Addressed issue where the formation name would not update during no huddle situations
– Improved line shifting functionality out of defensive camera
– Improved defensive adaptive AI
– Added QB signature passing styles
– Addressed issue where reading keys against read option wasn’t working on All-Madden
– Added logic to prevent multiple ways of grieving during online games
– Improved logic in CFM when determining who the starting RT should be
– Addressed an issue where the user would fail when punting the ball out of bounds on the Medium Coffin Corner drill
– Addressed exploit where users put WR’s at TE position on depth chart inside of MUT
– General improvements to commentary logic
– Numerous stability improvements

Patch 1.05

Player Likeness - Updated Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota
Store Improvements - Easy links to upgrade to Madden 16

Ummmm...why are Winston and Mariota in the game already? Are they even a part of the NFLPA yet? Otherwise they didn't touch the actual game.