Fight for the Fumble Controls Redux - Valdarez's Blog

Valdarez's Blog

Fight for the Fumble Controls Redux

Posted on February 4, 2010 at 11:56 PM.

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Awhile back I blogged about Better Fight for the Fumble Controls in Madden. Since then, I have spent more time with Madden 10 with the Fight for the Fumble turned off. This has allowed me to gain a new appreciation for the animation that's taking place on the screen. I personally can't remember seeing a fight for the fumble in a video football game before Madden 10 and the animation on the screen in Madden really adds to the excitement of the loose ball.

Before I go into details on the improved controls idea, I want to list the slight items from the Fight for the Fumble that need to be addressed in Madden 11:

Many times is clear who recovered the ball, well before the animation triggers. In these instances the animation should not trigger.
At times they are fighting for the ball, and the animation does not trigger quickly enough. It's almost like there's a slight lag before the animation plays.
At times the camera angle is just way off. I'm not sure what's causing it, as the animation appears to be canned, but there were times when I saw nothing but the top of the pile. When this happened, I wasn't even sure what was going on, much less that there was a Fight for the Fumble in progress.
We need more than one animation for the Fight for the Fumble. It's great to finally have a Fight for the Fumble in a football game, but over time a single animation gets stale. It would probably take some time, but it would be nice to have the ProTak technology applied to the Fight for the Fumble so we aren't always seeing the same animation over and over again. On average at least one Fight for the Fumble is triggered every game and because it's an intense moment coupled with a new camera angle, it's something that sticks in the gamers mind. Thus it's something that will seem overly redundant over time.

Proposed Controls for Fight for the Fumble in Madden 11
So lets talk about the the controls for the Fight for the Fumble by taking a look at the image I put together for it from the previous blog.

In the previous blog, I suggested that a gamer would move the analog sticks up and down to try and secure the ball. The bar would slowly turn green as you slowly took control of the bar, and once it was fully green the gamer would click the L/R Analog sticks and the L/R Trigger buttons to secure it (simulating two hands around the ball).

After giving it some more thought, and having watched the animation during the games, I no longer want to see ANY graphics displayed on the screen. The animation is too good to muddle up with an overlay. However while I enjoy watching the animation, I still want to take part in the action and fight for the ball. Towards that end, I propose the following method for fighting and gaining control of the ball when a Fight for the Fumble is triggered:

Controller begins rumbling strongly when the animation is first triggered.
Gamer moves the Left/Right Analog Stick Up/Down to Fight for the Fumble (as illustrated in image above).
As the ball slowly becomes under the control of the gamer, the rumble slowly fades away.
When the rumble stops completely, the player will have a small window of time to click the Left/Right Analog Stick and the Left/Right Trigger.
If the gamer secures the ball then the controller could rumble one more time to indicate the ball was secured.

Alternatively to #5 when the player secures the ball, nothing could happen, and the player could find out who secured the ball when the ref makes the call on the field. I personally don't like this approach as it takes the gamer out of the game and puts them in more of a spectator role rather than in the role of a NFL Player. Whenever possible, the game should be presented from the NFL Players perspective when it involves on the field action.

So what do you guys think? Sound off if you think this control scheme is better or if you have another control scheme that you think would work better.