Hey Madden fans! I am Larry Richart, one of the designers on the central gameplay team (we work on both Madden NFL 10 and NCAA 10). Playbooks for both games are handled by myself and Anthony White, so this week I wanted to take some time out and describe just some of the improvements you can expect to see in Madden NFL 10.

Over the years we have continued to add more and more team-specific plays, formations, audibles, and the like, but one of the biggest things that we hadn't nailed was that the CPU teams didn’t play the same way that they do in real life. For example, when you were playing against the Vikings they wouldn’t utilize RB Adrian Peterson enough and would quickly abandon the run for the pass. Knowing that well over half of our audience plays offline games exclusively (mostly in Franchise mode), this year we made it a point to concentrate on getting teams to call plays that focus on their best players (while still differentiating team playbooks with unique team specific formations and plays). For some teams like the Vikings and the Falcons, that may be through the running game, while others like the Patriots and Saints, you obviously expect them to air it out a lot more.

To accomplish this, we used our Play Designer tool to totally re-vamp the "AI Groups" to change the way the CPU calls their plays. An "AI Group" is basically the same exact concept of a bucket of plays a team takes into the game geared around game situations.  These situations include all the normal football situations like 1st and 10, 2nd Short/Medium/Long, 3rd and Short/Medium/Long, 4th and Short/Medium/Long, Goal Line, and many others. The AI Groups also cover all the “Special” situations like Special Teams plays, QB Kneel Downs, Conserve time (No-Huddle plays), Waste Time (when CPU is ahead and tries to run the clock out), and Hail Mary calls. In previous years, you'd see a much more generic smattering of plays in an AI Group - many of them would be balanced right down the middle between run and pass across all plays. The Head Coach 09 team did some great work and added some deeper support to tag exact plays and the percentages they should be run per situation. We zeroed out all of our previous situational numbers and started from scratch - making sure the CPU picked from a more team-specific subset of plays (no reason to have all those generic HB Dive plays in there if teams don't run them often).

Let's pick the Vikings for example. After researching the Vikings by watching all 16 regular season games, we found that out of 440 total first down plays, 271 (62%) were runs. With that in mind we really wanted to emphasize that the Vikings like to run the ball on first down and with arguably the best back in the league getting the ball, who can blame them!  We set the Overall Run percentage in Madden NFL 10 to that exact number. Of the 271 run plays, 64 runs were outside (22%). So 78% of the time in Madden NFL 10, you can expect the Vikings to be bringing it downhill right into your face.

"What if Peterson gets injured or traded?" you may ask. A really cool thing built into Adaptive AI (which was first detailed here) is that the team will re-evaluate itself constantly - so if for example if the Vikings no longer have a feature back like Peterson, they will adjust accordingly (and likely start running the ball much less on first down).

The Vikings will deliver a heavy dose of Peterson in Madden NFL 10. You will be in for a long day if you don't come up with a good strategy to stop the run.

Another example we'll showcase is the Colts. Again, researching their playcalling percentages on first down, they are more of a passing team with Peyton Manning (56% pass on first downs during the regular season) we set their Overall Pass percentage to exactly 56% for First Downs. When we dig a little bit deeper into this same group (1st and 10), it should also be known that they have 8 different run plays that they'll choose between. Of these 8, 6 of them are stretch plays. Having this ability to choose the play type per situation really is what sets the teams apart from each other.


Peyton Manning and the Colts are as dangerous as ever and will keep you guessing all day long.

These are just two extremely small examples in the grand scheme of things - we did this for every single team and every single AI group. The Eagles called play action passes 29% of the time on 2nd down, so you can expect the same in Madden NFL 10. The list goes on.

With all this focus on CPU playcalling and getting teams to play like they do in real life, we have also spent a large amount of time in differientiating team playbooks and giving them unique formations and plays.  These new formations and plays directly tie in with our improved AI groups and CPU playcalling.  We have bumped up the percentages of the newly added plays to be called more frequently by the CPU.  Our goal is to have our CPU teams running a similar offensive style that the teams do in real life.

For example, the Patriots primarily use Wes Welker in the slot in 3+ WR sets.  With that in mind, we created 3 new formations (Singleback Doubles Patriots, Gun Wing Trips Wk, and Gun 5WR Patriot) that have Welker lining up in the slot.  In previous versions of Madden, the WR2 always lined up on the outside while the WR3 lined up in the slot. You had to use packages or substitutions to get him into that position in the past, whereas now they will just have this setup by default.

We have also added new formations for various teams that have the WR1 and the TE1 lining up in the slot as well.  So don’t be surprised when you play the CPU and guys like Greg Jennings, Hines Ward, Steve Smith and Dallas Clark are lining up inside against you.

Here is a small snapshot of all the Patriots passing plays (notice there are 222 total!). All the formations and plays shown below are new this year and make playing the Patriots difficult to defend.  Make sure you are aware of where Welker lines up because if he gets one-on-one coverage on a linebacker or weaker corner back in the slot, you could be in for a long day!

All in all we have added 35 new formations and over 1000 new plays.  Among those new formations is of course the Wildcat, which we have mentioned in a previous blog (here).  We have 13 different variations of the Wildcat spread throughout a variety of playbooks including the Cardinals, Falcons, Panthers, Browns, Chiefs, 49ers, and a few others.



New formations in action: New England Patriots Gun Wing Trips Wk-Stutter Curl Seam vs. Nickel Odd Split-Cover 3
 

For the defensive side of the ball we have again concentrated on CPU playcalling and getting teams to play like they do in real life.  When playing teams like the Ravens and Steelers you will definitely feel the pressure as a QB and will have to be ready for the blitz coming at you from a variety of angles.  We have also added two new formations, the 3-4 Predator (which is a 3-4/4-3 hybrid set that has the ROLB on the line in a 3 point stance- think Terrell Suggs/Joey Porter) and the Nickel Odd Split set. With more and more NFL teams using the 3-4 as a base defense now (13 teams in Madden 10 will have a 3-4 base defense) we felt that it was important to continue to improve the functionality around the 3-4 and make it much more applicable to real life.

New formations in action: Cleveland Browns Flash Trio vs. Arizona Cardinals 3-4 Predator

Hopefully you have enjoyed the blog and have a better understanding of how we try and learn from our previous mistakes and constantly are looking for ways to improve our game.

- Larry Richart
Designer, Madden NFL 10

Hello all, my name is Anthony White and I’m here to share with you all what work we did this year for the Flexbone offense.  Going into our current development cycle for NCAA Football 10 our top playbook priority was making sure our version of the Flexbone offense is a more accurate representation of its real life counterpart.  We didn’t necessarily want to just take what’s already in place on the Gen 2 versions of NCAA Football.   Our goal was to take it above and beyond anything that had been done previously with the Flexbone offense on any platform.

Last summer we were able to acquire the actual coach’s game film of the Navy Flexbone offense.  Having access to this valuable resource really gave us an advantage when it was time to identify what new formations that we needed to create, what plays did we need for those formations, and most importantly what new player animations we needed to mo-cap in order to get those plays working properly in our game.  The results of our efforts produced eight new formations and over 200 new plays.

Here’s a look at the new formations that we created based on our film study.

Flexbone Twins Over

Flexbone Slit Wing Z

 
 Flexbone Spit Wing X

 
Flexbone Close

 
Flexbone Slot Right

 
 Flexbone Trips Right

 
Flexbone Trio Right

 
 Flexbone Tackle Over

 
Running Game:

The running attack from this unique offensive system is what it’s most known for, and it’s not all about the triple option.  There are numerous things that can be done with the running game out of the Flexbone.  Some of the new plays that we were able create this year thanks to the new animations include Wingback Toss both weak and strong with a play action pass to compliment it, Midline QB Iso which is a double option scheme where the quarterback can either handoff to the fullback or duck inside the playside B gap following the lead blocks of the two wingbacks, FB and Wingback Load Option plays which also include play action compliments, and the Wingback Jet Sweep.

Those are just a few of the new plays we were able to add for the Flexbone offense, but the most unique one of all we added in my opinion is the Trap Option.  The Trap Option calls for the quarterback to open up to one side of the formation where he then fakes it to the fullback before he pivots and rotates counter clockwise and runs the option in the opposite direction with the backside wingback being his pitch man.  It gets its name Trap Option due to the fact that the backside guard pulls and “trap blocks” the play side defensive end.   

This play to the defense starts out looking like our normal Triple Option play to the defense, but it attacks the opposite side of the field instead.  Before we could get this play up and running in game we needed to capture new player animations featuring the quarterback and fullback.  What generally happens is we identify on film what we want and we in turn communicate that to our mo-cap talent so that they can go out and execute what we’re looking for.  It’s very similar to coaching where you introduce a new scheme to your players and during its installation you walk through each of the finer points of the scheme with each player so that he knows exactly what he needs to do within the play. 

Here’s the mo-cap video of the quarterback and fullback carrying out the first phase of the Flexbone Trap option play. 

 Here’s that same animation in NCAA Football 2010.

Passing Game:

Much attention was also paid to the passing game portion of the Flexbone offense.  When you open up the playbook you’ll notice that most of the running plays have some sort of play action compliment that starts out looking like that run play.  Many of these new plays are a both your more traditional play action passes along with the option passes.  One of the new pass plays are PA Switch in which the outside receiver runs a post route and the wingback to the side runs a wheel route up the sidelines.  This is a common scheme in the Flexbone offense. 

We also wanted to bring some new fresh ideas to the drop back passing portion of the Flexbone offense.  As many of you know this style of offense has the reputation of being a bad offense to run when you’re trailing in the game and need to throw the ball.  Some of the new passing plays we added actually take a page from the Run & Shoot offense.  Two run & shoot pass concepts we added are “60 Go” and “60 Choice”.  In these two plays the left wingback goes in motion to the right slot which forms a trips alignment.  On 60 Go the outside receiver on the now trips side runs a streak route, the motion wingback runs an option route where he can take it to the post or he can go straight up field, and the right wingback runs to the flat.  The goal is to read the curl/flat defender.  If he jumps the flat route, the quarterback should be able to make a quick throw to the option route, if said defender jumps the option route, then the quarterback makes a quick throw to the flat.    

We also included Four Verticals and WR Middle Screen out of Flexbone Trips Right, Left, and Trio Right.  The goal of any offense is to be balanced and that holds true with this style of offense.  If you’re playing with one of the Flexbone offense playbooks and your opponent is loading up to stop the run, you’ll have a multitude of viable passing plays at your disposal to keep your opponent honest.  

Playbooks:

The team playbooks that feature the Flexbone offense prominently are Army, Georgia Tech, and Navy.  Air Force also has multiple Flexbone formations in their playbook along with other more traditional formations.  Here’s a look at the formations and sets that make up our Flexbone playbooks.

 
Even the Goal Line formation for Army, Georgia Tech, and Navy Is a Flexbone formation.

 
It was fun seeing the Flexbone offense through the design phase from concept to its implementation into the game. There's a perception right or wrong that we can just draw up a play and it magically appears in game working the same as it does in real life. There's a lot of planning that goes on amongst the design staff, software engineers, animators, and mo-cap talent to make it all work.  It’s our hope that you guys will enjoy what we now have to offer with the Flexbone offense in NCAA Football 10.

Anthony White, Assistant Designer, EA SPORTS