Skill vs Strategy vs manipulating AI code

I see a lot of talk here and on streamer chats, etc about skill. I've seen comments from people amounting to "git good" with regard to stopping certain routes and formations, for example. People talking about how you can stop this or that with skill.

I take issue with the use of the term "skill" being used that way. As someone who has played Madden for over 30 years, I have been very skilled, and now my reflexes aren't what they used to be so my stick skills aren't as sharp. But I have played at high levels and not so high levels. I still know football though and what attributes are supposed to work well for certain positions and roles on a football team (AKA , strategy)

Listen, Madden does not often comply with real football strategy. The meta is made up of people finding ways to "dumb out" the AI. This doesn't take skill. It is merely using tools that have been found over many years ( motion slants - this certainly is not the first year that motion has been used to glitch the AI coverage)...to "break" the AI. Say what you want but that really is not skill.

Madden has become a game of abilities and tricking the AI or taking advantage of AI that does not work properly. I have not seen one MCS game or competitive high level game where the players actually only use true football strategy .

It is a game of manipulating code and football strategy and skill have taken a back seat. That's a shame. It is why each year I get itchy waiting for MLB The Show to drop. Sorry for the long dissertation but after a season of the worst AI I have seen ever in Madden I thought it appropriate.

Its all fantasy but you do have a point. They all kind of go hand in hand but there are certain differences. 

Manipulating code is basically just these youtubers throwing out games. Players that only know these specific plays are grouped into this category and if you stop these plays they usually quit because they dont know what else to. 

Strategy is knowing what works and what doesnt. Being able to use plays to counter the opposing team. I would put myself here. I dont have all the answers and make dumb plays when I play h2h and could learn more than just nickel/dime and pistol/gun formations. 

Skill encompasses both of these plus knowing the background info. Knowing what players to use because of abilities, thresholds, countering the opp, etc. These are your high tiered/comp players. They make bad teams usable and good teams great.

Skill, to me, is someone that can use any offensive scheme and more than one base defensive formation. Like if your bread and butter is Gun Tight on offense and if that doesn’t work, you move to Gun Bunch, that’s not skillful to me. Skill is someone that uses run, play action pass, and multiple different pass plays and RPOs with multiple different formations. On defense, blitzing everyone and getting user picks isn’t skillful to me. Running DB Fire every play isn’t skillful but that’s just me. 🤷🏽‍♂️

I gotta disagree. Madden is a simulation of a defensive play to an offensive play. Because each game is 1/3 time of a real game, it makes more sense for it to work theoretically. Knowing how the AI works is like watching tape IRL. Exploit them for their known but unspoken tendencies.

georgemm said:

I gotta disagree. Madden is a simulation of a defensive play to an offensive play. Because each game is 1/3 time of a real game, it makes more sense for it to work theoretically. Knowing how the AI works is like watching tape IRL. Exploit them for their known but unspoken tendencies.

That would be true if EA did not call it a football Sim but they do

Martyr1968 said:

I see a lot of talk here and on streamer chats, etc about skill. I've seen comments from people amounting to "git good" with regard to stopping certain routes and formations, for example. People talking about how you can stop this or that with skill.

I take issue with the use of the term "skill" being used that way. As someone who has played Madden for over 30 years, I have been very skilled, and now my reflexes aren't what they used to be so my stick skills aren't as sharp. But I have played at high levels and not so high levels. I still know football though and what attributes are supposed to work well for certain positions and roles on a football team (AKA , strategy)

Listen, Madden does not often comply with real football strategy. The meta is made up of people finding ways to "dumb out" the AI. This doesn't take skill. It is merely using tools that have been found over many years ( motion slants - this certainly is not the first year that motion has been used to glitch the AI coverage)...to "break" the AI. Say what you want but that really is not skill.

Madden has become a game of abilities and tricking the AI or taking advantage of AI that does not work properly. I have not seen one MCS game or competitive high level game where the players actually only use true football strategy .

It is a game of manipulating code and football strategy and skill have taken a back seat. That's a shame. It is why each year I get itchy waiting for MLB The Show to drop. Sorry for the long dissertation but after a season of the worst AI I have seen ever in Madden I thought it appropriate.

I agree 💯  bro, it suck having to quit a game because this cheeseball is using the same 2 or 3 plays that's undefenceable. I'm amazed when I get un a game with someone that actually plays a game of football that is like a game of football. And to the people that quit because I'm doing pretty good in a game, stop, I'm not that good, you can still come back and beat me, most games are close anyway.