I'm continually surprised by how many people play the game with minimal understanding

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StrikeFromAbove said:

That's awesome. I never played organized football, but I wish I had for a better understanding when I watch guys like Brett Kollmann on YouTube. Some stuff is beyond my head, lol. But, as with all of us, we can always learn. I would say I've also learned a lot from listening to broadcasters/podcast hosts. And, honestly, just reading about formations. Stays like strong-side/weak-side were foreign to me until about 10 years ago.

exactly, you can learn anything on the internet, it's unacceptable to not know enough about something you are doing IMO.. whether you've experienced it or not doesn't matter, ignorance is a choice in our age of information and ignorance is just laziness...

actually played a yr of d2 college football and thought I was going to try to coach but ended up doing finance instead, still would like to coach college football someday

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#17

Dante88 said:

I always assume it's kids

Maybe but this dude had prolly an 89 or 90 Offense I'd say, without the AM strat card. So I was thinking this was an adult.

I gotta say, I don't generally like the card but Adrian Peterson played well for me. Adrian Phillips was a beast. 2 picks, a defended pass , 3 tackles for loss including a sack.

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#18

This is why I rarely play squads... pretty much only when they had "xx Squads wins" as part of some objectives. I'm pretty sure this was before the passes... maybe it was MUT Master?

In any case... when I did play squads, I would always run offense. I would tell them to just stay off the routes I wanted to throw to... because my route combinations are designed to beat whatever defense they were using. So I had beaters for man, cover2, cover 3, cover 4... what have you. I would tell them... just go on the clearout streak or block with the HB. Nope... they'd almost always take one of my beater routes and then instead of running it as the play art would dictate they would run around like an idiot and then tell me they were trying to get open.

On defense... I would user an MLB or sub-LB and told the others to do the same or get on the DLine and try to get pressure on the QB... but routinely one of my team mates would grab a Safety... bring him all the way down next to me... get beat on a streak... and quit out of the game.

Squads with your friends must be super fun... but my friends don't play Madden. And Squads with randos is one of the most frustrating experiences in the game.

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#19

phatalerror said:

I've always been something of a defender for EA when it comes to the artificial intelligence that makes the game work; it's so terribly complex to develop a realistic depiction of 22 individuals on a field acting within the scope of their own scheme, reacting to the execution of the opponent's scheme, and doing so from their individual perspectives and anticipated tendencies, not necessarily what we would want them to do as we see them from our top-down view as players.

However, it is frustrating to most to play this game with the recognition that no matter how much you know about football, it is more important to understand how the AI will respond to given conditions. This game increasingly rewards players that understand football, but there are still gaps in the AI that allow players to ignore football logic and prioritize Madden logic. Since it's infeasible to apply all of the necessary pre-play adjustments required to stop a one- or two-play spammer (especially on defense), the more practical step to help users advance, young or old, will be to watch videos that teach you how to exploit the AI, not videos that teach fundamental football principles.

All of that said, you get what you get with Squads. As in Spades or similar card games, if your partner lacks a certain degree of skill, you may not be able to adequately carry them when pitted against knowledgeable opponents.

Making users change direction quicker and accelerate would be a good balance. Waiting 15 mins to make a play and then the ball whizzes right by/over your user is very frustrating.

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