Madden NFL 21 Closed Beta Feedback

Hey Madden fans, welcome back to Gridiron Notes!

Today we are going to focus on your gameplay feedback from the Madden NFL 21 Closed Beta. Player feedback plays a fundamental role in how we improve our game and we are excited to share how our team plans to address your feedback.

Before we begin though, we wanted to take a moment to provide insight about additional gameplay features you may have discovered during the closed beta.

Celebration Run Mechanic on LT/L2
We made the Celebration Run mechanic a one-button mechanic in Madden NFL 21 so it was easier for players to use, as this was a three-button combo mechanic in years past. Since we no longer have the precision modifier, LT/L2 would otherwise be an unused button, we will not be changing this back to the three-button combo for Madden 21.

Loss of Precision Modifier on LT/L2
The Precision Modifier was no longer necessary once we implemented the Skill Stick for ball carriers. All evasive ball carrier moves can now be naturally steered with Left Stick input, with the amount of steering scaled per each ball carrier’s special move ratings.

Pre-play Defensive Adjustments Updates
Because we’ve introduced the new Defensive Back Lock-On mechanic, which can be activated in pre-play, we needed to shuffle around the defensive pre-play mechanics to support it. Pressing LB/L1 will now activate DB Lock-On for your user-controlled player in either pre-play or during play. And RB/R1 is where you’ll now find the Defensive Keys menu that was previously on LB/L1.

DB Lock-On Mechanic
The new Lock-On mechanic allows you to lock your user-controlled player into man coverage behavior on a specific receiver when holding down the LB/L1 button. While locked on, you can steer your player relative to the leverage on the locked-on receiver rather than the whole field, so this allows you to have more control over the movement of your defender. When in the lock-on state, you do have to react to WR cut-moves within a timing window based on the player coverage ratings to stay with receivers making direction changes in route-running.

Ball Carrier Archetype Run Styles
An additional feature of depth coming to Madden NFL 21 via the Skill Stick system is the concept of ball carrier archetypes that directly impact the run-cycle and special moves each player will use. Here’s a quick breakdown of how this works, based on ratings, height and weight:

• AGILE: Can turn and change direction faster/smoother and has quickest special moves; applies to skill position players with 80 Agility or above and under 225 pounds (Example - Christian McCaffrey)
• AGILE SMALL: Similar to agile, but with a shorter, quicker stride-length; applies to agile skill position players who are 5’10“ or below (Example - Tyreek Hill)
• AGILE TALL: Similar to agile, but with a longer, tall stride-length; applies to agile skill position players who are 6’2“ or taller (Example - Julio Jones)
• BRUISER: Slower rate of turning, takes longer to change direction, slower evasive special moves than agile players, but more powerful power moves; applies to skill positions and linemen with less than 80 Agility and over 225 pounds (Example - CJ Anderson)
• BRUISER QUICK: Similar to bruiser, but with custom animations for bigger players who have quick feet; applies to bruiser skill positions and linemen with a Speed rating of 90 or above (Example - Derrick Henry)
• BRUISER HEAVY: Similar to bruiser, with custom animation for bigger players who don’t typically carry the ball, such as offensive and defensive linemen; applies to any bruiser who is 290 pounds or heavier

Below are the topics of feedback that received the most votes during the Madden NFL 21 Closed Beta with the response to the feedback from the Madden Development Team:

User on defense feels slow/sluggish
While the feedback around this was consistent, it was also very polarizing. The speed at which defenders change of direction will be largely unchanged because the vision for gameplay balance is focused more on authentic player movements and strategic decisions. While we are investigating to ensure there are no bugs in player movement that could be having unintended consequences, the intent of this system is to reduce the area of the field a single defensive player can cover based on ratings and direction changes, and encourage coverage defenders to makes choices about what routes they want to take away. As player ratings increase, the amount of ground a player can cover will also increase.

Change back Hurdle/Truck
Due to player feedback in the beta, we have changed the Hurdle and Truck button inputs back to the way they functioned previously. Players told us the previous button mappings were more intuitive felt like the new controller scheme was cumbersome to learn. Here’s some important notes on the change:

• Hurdle will return to the Y/Triangle button. The Jurdle, or Juke-Hurdle combo, can still be used by steering the left stick while pressing the hurdle button to branch from a regular hurdle to a jurdle in the input direction of the stick.
• Truck will return to the R3/Right Stick when pushing the stick up. The only move that Truck will have the ability to branch to via the Skill Stick is the stick spin. After starting a truck, rotating the stick in either direction will combo a truck to spin. Truck will not have the ability to branch to any of the other skill moves on the Skill Stick.
• Many players told us that ultimately, they would like to have custom controller mappings available in the game so that each individual player can use the control scheme that fits them best. We agree! Unfortunately, this feature is not something we will be able to deliver this year but it remains on our list of features we would really like to deliver in the future.

Players aren’t reacting to the ball when thrown (both offense and defense)
These cases displayed bugs in our catching system, typically around missing catch animation coverage. This issue will be significantly improved for launch, and we will continue to support this area via Title Updates, if more cases pop up.
Dropped interceptions occurring too frequently was another piece of common feedback we heard and these were also related to the bugs in the catching system. These have been cleaned up for launch and is another area we’ll be supporting post-launch if necessary.

Zone Coverage doesn’t feel effective
When the beta started, zone coverage systems weren’t completely tuned yet, so much of this feedback was expected. Here’s a detailed outline of what to expect from Zone Coverage upon launch:

• Improved reaction times relative to breaking on the ball, which scales per defenders’ Zone (ZCV) rating, or Man (MCV) rating in Match Zones
• Added logic to modify break-on-ball reactions based on the facing direction of the defender, meaning if he can clearly see the throw, he will break faster than when he cannot see the throw
• Improved zone behavior for defenders with Zone coverage abilities
• Fixed issues in Cover 4 Quarters and Palms causing zone defenders to react too much to Play-Action
• Fixed logic problems with Quarter-Flat zones inappropriately matching vertical routes
• Fixed logic problems in Cover 3 against HB Wheel routes
• Improved underneath zones’ dropping logic
• Cover 3 and Cover 2 coverages will get more updates later after launch via Title Updates

Player Switching Logic doesn’t feel intuitive
The beta had some changes to player switching logic that we wanted to get more testing and feedback on in an attempt to make some improvements to downfield player-switching. Based on that feedback, those changes had more unintended negative consequences than we’d like, so we’ve removed those changes, so player-switch logic will be the same as it was in Madden 20 for launch of Madden 21.

Film Study Ability
Outside of the feedback around the defensive user, this ability led to the most polarizing topic among our community and it’s exactly the feedback we were looking for. We included this ability in the beta to get a gauge from our players about how this could function in the game. While the Film Study ability will not be available in the game for launch, we do plan to introduce it later in the year via Title Update. We are going to continue to iterate, balance and tune the ability to make it as fair and balanced as possible for all our players before we release it, and all the feedback we got from the community will be extremely helpful towards that iteration.

Fatigue penalties for scrambling QB’s are too severe
The feedback on scrambling QB’s told us that countering scrambling QB’s felt difficult on defense, but also that the fatigue penalties to out-of-position ball carriers felt too punitive at times. Here’s the improvements we’ve made to balance this out:

• Decrease in fatigue penalty for simply running with an out-of-position ball carrier, but not getting hit.
• Increase in fatigue penalty when taking hits with an out-of-position ball carrier, more significant when taking hit-stick tackles

AI pass-rush doesn’t seem as effective as user pass-rush
We have slightly boosted the win probabilities of AI-controlled pass rushers on Simulation All-Pro, Competitive All-Pro and Competitive All-Madden, which will make higher-rated pass rushers have a bit more impact when AI-controlled. For context around this tuning, the stats from the beta showed an average of less than 1 defensive sack per game, while we are targeting closer to 2 per game.

To balance this tuning, we’ve also added in logic for pass-block double teams to fully utilize the blocker resistance system. This means that when rushing against double teams, any memory built up against the rusher to that point in the game will count towards the rusher for both blockers in the double team, making it harder to beat double teams.

QB’s can be stripped in the pocket without starting a throw on Competitive
We received feedback that told us QB’s fumbling before starting a throw was unfair for the Competitive game style. In response, we have disabled strip sacks on QB’s inside the pocket, with the exception of pass rushers with the Strip Specialist ability. This change applies to Competitive only across all difficulties.

‘Past Max THP’ passing feedback and Penalty
When the Throw Power (THP) max is hit by a QB per his THP rating, we have made a change so that a QB cannot be hit with both an Accuracy penalty and a Power penalty on the same throw (except on Crossbody throws), as this was causing throws to be wildly off-target and was confusing to players. We have also updated the passing feedback text to be clearer for this specific passing penalty, so instead of it reading ‘Past Max THP,’ it will now say ‘Out of Range.’ This is applied when trying to throw to a receiver who is further downfield than the QB’s THP rating can reach.

The following bugs have been fixed for launch.

• Rainbow-colored Arms/Pink Arm Equipment
• Incorrect Player Pictures
• Visors not positioned on helmets correctly
• Gamertags cover the play clock when playing Online
• Coach adjustments reset after every drive and Coverage Depth Adjustment automatically sets to zero

WHAT’S NEXT?

Our next Gridiron Notes will be on Friday, July 31^st and will focus on the X-Factor and Superstar abilities for Madden NFL 21.

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Madden NFL 21 is out worldwide on August 28. Pre-order the Madden NFL 21 Deluxe or MVP Edition and play 3 days early. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and EA Forums. Sign up for the Newsletter today to receive updates on Madden, and other EA news, products, and events, all season long.