Madden 11 Demo Raises Concerns With Strategy Pad

The Madden 11 demo has finally arrived on the Xbox 360, and while some gamers can’t wait to download it on the PS3 later today, those who are already playing have been quick to voice their concerns over a new feature.

MAJOR UPDATE: EA has just announced they will make the strategy pad optional!

A Cause for Concern

If you haven’t heard of the new “Strategy Pad” in Madden 11, then chances are you will soon. New to this year’s biggest football video game franchise is the introduction of an all-new way to call hot-routes on the fly. While previously gamers would make pre-play adjustments with several different buttons designed as modifiers to the analog sticks, now the entirety of adjustments are mapped to the D-pad. While this sounds like a great way to unify the controls, it has quickly become a big problem among veteran players.

Strategy Pad is Strategy Bad

Every year, football gaming fans find a reason to complain about the latest Madden NFL game. Usually, these are just knee-jerk reactions that come with the territory of being the sole football game with an NFL license, but this year, there might be something to it. The problem with the “Strategy Pad” isn’t that it’s new, and it’s not that it’s different. The problem, quite simply, is that it takes more time to do less things.

Take for example the simple task of shifting your linebackers to the right on the Xbox 360. If this were Madden 10, all you would need to do is hit the right bumper, and flick the joystick right. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It was. Now let’s look at the strategy pad, where to do the same action you must hit down on the dpad, then right on the dpad, then right again on the dpad if you want to shift right.

While ostensibly this is only one extra button, consider that experienced players often make several adjustments before the snap, and it doesn’t take long for those extra steps to feel cumbersome, and the multiple directions to feel like a cheat code. Not only does it take longer to do the same thing in Madden 11 just by its very layout, but at times it felt like we had to wait for the strategy pad screen to appear in between each button press if we wanted to ensure our action was registered (or perhaps it was just the inconsistency inherent in the D-pad). For experienced players, this makes the game almost unplayable. –> See Follow-Up Video

Fans Voice Their Opinions

It’s not just us here on GoMadden who have noticed problems with the strategy pad. In fact, it’s a common theme among forum posts and impressions from a variety of different websites. While criticism always comes swift to Madden NFL games, this probably is something that the development team should look into. The solution, quite simply, would be to allow users to turn off the strategy pad if they so choose (just as they already can with other new control changes).

Legend Killer on OS: “I can already tell you that the strategy pad for Defense going to be a problem. Unless you are very quick thinker and have quick hands. You will not be able to adjust hardly any postion like shifting LBers are DBs before the AI snaps the ball.”

KensaiKatai on OS: “They have to patch this! I can’t believe this strategy pad nonsense. It’s not intuitive and it’s not efficient. What were they trying to accomplish with this?

It’s really destroying the game for me. Pre-snap adjustments are a thing of the past and can no longer be done with the ease that they were once done. I’d be lucky to make one adjustment per snap now. I really don’t get it.”

pastapadre on Pastapadre: “I like the audible system, but hate the strategy pad. No time to even press the corners when on defense. It’s like they changed it so that it’s different from the past and from NCAA, which just messes with people who go between the two games.”

Michura on MaddenTips: “So far I really hate the strategy pad. I’m sure once I get the hang of it it won’t be as bad but its existence is making me not want to play the demo. I hate it THAT much.”

Manning on GoMadden: “Mapping the pre-snap controls to the dpad might make things much more organized, but it makes for lethargic gameplay.”

Cast Your Vote, Make a Comment

We’ve set up a poll to get a better feel for the community opinion on the strategy pad issue, and if that’s not enough, there’s plenty more to be said in the comments below. Keep in mind that EA is looking to find a balance between making the game easier to pick up for new players, and pleasing the fans that make the commitment to buy Madden every year.

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