Madden 21 Features: Personnel Based Audibles Open Up Playcalling, Gameplay Tuning Penalizes Spamming
One of the new changes in terms of the Madden 21 features will involve calling audibles. In football, the option allows coaches and QBs to keep opponents guessing as to what they might do in terms of their playcalling. Madden 21 will include personnel-based packages for a whole new way to shake things up on the field. In addition, gamers won’t be able to try to overdo it when it comes to their pre-play audibles, without potential penalties.
What are personnel based audibles?
When the Madden 21 game arrives, gamers will get some new features updates to adjust to. As one of the helpful new Madden 21 features, gamers will be able to have much more creativity in their offensive play calling. That’s because the pre-play audibles system will now take the player personnel on the field into account.
This is referred to as “player personnel packaging.” As an example given by EA, if you have 12 personnel on the field for the Gun Empty Flex, you can “audible to any other formation in your playbook that also uses 12 personnel.”
In the example shown during EA Madden’s Twitch stream, they had 12 personnel on the field including one running back and two tight ends for Gun Empty Flex. They showed the new option to audible from Gun Empty Flex to a Single Back Ace from the playbook, as one example.
Being able to call various audibles based on the personnel on-field opens up plenty of new opportunities for gamers to keep opponents guessing what’s coming next. While EA mentions the personnel based audibles only will apply to offense in the game, they have also indicated they may take a look at ways to include defensive plays.
That said, gamers will want to pay attention to the tuning that Madden 21 features in terms of trying to call many audibles on one pre-play.
Other features include penalties for repeated auidbles, player fatigue factor
The new personnel based audibles feature was one of several mentioned during EA’s Deep Dive Gameplay stream on Twitch a few weeks ago. Others included making some interesting adjustments to prevent spamming of the same plays.
In the Deep Dive notes, they’ve indicated that the offensive line runs more risk of getting called for a false start penalty when multiple audibles or play-flips are used during pre-play. As EA noted, it’s to “ simulate the confusion an offensive player would likely have if the QB changed the play 3-6 times while sitting his is pre-play stance.”
Adding in a fatigue factor is another way the new Madden 21 features is looking to improve the gameplay. In past editions such as Madden 20, gamers may have continuously used the same plays over and over. Now that fatigue is a factor in terms of potential for missed catches dropped balls, fumbles, and other mistakes, it’ll make things more realistic.
A Madden 21 closed beta took place last weekend. During the beta, many gamers were able to test out some of the new aspects of gameplay and provide feedback. It should be interesting to see if more tuning takes place ahead of the game’s official release date in August.
The new Madden 21 video game has an August 28, 2020 release date for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PCs. See the MVP pre-order details here.