Off-Ball Injuries Are in Madden NFL 18, Changes to Hit Stick Functionality

I didn't expect off-ball injuries to get in this year, personally. With that in user teams can no longer get away with rostering only five OLs while CPU teams rostered up to ten. That change by itself will make franchise roster construction more interesting and more competitive.

Great news.
Wasn't the hit stick always on the RS, with a low and high option? The only difference I see is removing it from the button (good choice).

mmm, a sim feature that the people cried out for.
I am pleased it's in the game and now we will see how it functins.

Heck Yes! :appl::appl::appl:
The coverage assignments announcement was nice, but this is huge imo. First time I've been happily surprised by EA in a while.
Shaping up to be a dang good football year.

Off ball injuries are huge and a great edition.

So happy for the off the ball injuries!

Off-Ball Injuries does not mean offensive line injuries unless my English betrays me. Surely it means non-contact? The guys in that twitter link seem to not understand the term, I'm not convinced OL guys will get injured because that's not what Rex confirmed. This still doesn't mean the OL injury bug has been fixed tbh

In Clint's interview he specifically states that OL and DL can get injured with this.

Has the sim bar really been dropped this low?
I am happy to have this back in the game, but this is a difficult one to really give them too much credit for.

Depends on your take.
Here is another cool addition to CFM, this one I personally love and I really don't care if others join in on this one or not:
Per Clint on Twitter:
Play Now Live & live content/commentary updates weekly for Franchise.

Off ball injuries does mean linemen can get injured.
I do not think we will be seeing non-contact injuries anytime soon.
The lack of oline injuries was not a bug, just a feature that wasn't present. In previous Maddens injuries would only trigger during tackle animations, so only the ballcarrier or tackler could get injured.

Depends on the nature of the commentary. Commentary that is specific to players and current events in the NFL doesn't do much for franchise

That's one of the things that bugged me last year. Franchise never got the live updates that Play Now did. Now we will. I'm stoked for that.

To each their own, whatever, does for me, as I get tired of hearing the same commentary over and over again that is repeated ad nauseam throughout the season.

Per Clint on Twitter

I can understand that.
Hell I don't even know what the commentary updates consisted of last year.
I was under the impression that they referenced the NFL season.
I'd rather have no updates then hear something that not only doesn't apply to my franchise but also doesn't even make sense (e.g. if they reference that Joe Flacco threw 3 ints in his last real life game, but in my franchise he just returned from injury)

Great additions! Looks as if hit stick is used for OL/DL engagements as well. Does that mean steerable engagements are back in?

The updated commentary was only in Play Now exclusively, not CFM at all.

Yeah, but I think what they're saying, and what I believe as well, is that this was the case last year. The commentary updates were also added to CFM, but they were not CFM specific. Lol, this is another one of those things that we need clear cut answers, and as much as I appreciate Clint, in general, I think he's sarcastic enough to enjoy giving half answers. Lol.
So, the real question is, imo, 'will the commentary inside CFM be updated per season within CFM?' I would like for them to add CFM draft players' names, honestly. That would be huge. But, overall, to clarify, in my CFM, will I hear, 'Matt Ryan just won his 3rd super bowl in a row and Julio Jones is this year's super bowl MVP' inside CFM. Will that commentary be dynamic, maybe, is another way to look at it.
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The commentary updates weren't as advertised. Basically, they would say one or two sentences about the past week. Everything else was exactly the same.

I'm def happy with Oline injuries and the hit stick. I'm always for more control, and I like the option of hitting high or low. And, with the removal of suction tackling, this should result in more risk/reward.
I have to say, though, I know the first time my LT gets injured, I'm going to be pi$$ed!!!! . But, I wanted it, as well, so it'll be a nice addition for CFM, specifically.
Edit: and yes, low/high used to be in madden. I know. Just glad to see it return.
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The commentary updates were exclusive only to Play Now, not CFM. The updated commentary did not appear inside the game, in play by play.
Of course, we will need to tune in later to find out more specifics.

If this isn't done perfectly, I hope off ball injuries have their own separate slider. Also hoping for more 2-3 quarter injuries and less broken collarbones for 8 weeks lol

I know that, it is why I never heard any of it.
But what I am saying is that before I celebrate this change, I want to know what the nature of the commentary update will be.
Same type of stuff as last year only now it plays in CFM? Don't think I will like that.
give me an example of the commentary update from last year.

Go play a Play Now game from 17lol, heck, I don't know.
Stay tuned, but for me, it's an added change.
YMMV.

U sure, man? I thought that 'some' of the updated commentary was added to all modes. Like, 'Julio Jones just had a 300 yard game last week vs the panthers.' That only goes to play now. But, I was under the impression they also added general stuff. U know how gaudin always says some joke about u skipping the halftime? Lol. I thought those were updated during the year. I thought I heard new ones. And/or, I believe they added general commentary like, 'u know, as a DB, I covered some tough WRs, but that guy is tough.' U know? I think they added some player specific and some general. They added all that to play now, but only general to CFM.
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Off the Ball Injuries eh.....
Definitely a positive direction to take, Madden.
Now I'm intrigued on how these injuries are going to emerge. Is it going to be:
a). Other guys that are making contact beside the tackling?
(e.g. DBs and WRs battling it out, OL/DL men wrestling at the Line of Scrimmage)
-or-
b). When an injury is to happen on a certain play, a random "dice roll" on a random player of all 22 on the field?
Whichever the case, I just hope the injuries make logical sense; I really wouldn't enjoy seeing one of my players - who is miles away from the action, by himself UNTOUCHED - all of a sudden go down to the turf clutching a random body part in agony.
Also, as rare as it happens, it is possible for multiple guys to get hurt on a play. I know that's probably not here now - but I hope it becomes a thing in future Maddens.
Regardless, GOOD shout EA!!
:appl:

Like a previous poster stated, maybe there was one or 2 added lines per game, but the majority went to Play Now.
My take on this, it's a needed improvement from Madden 17, on my end.

Yeah it is one of those I have to take a wait and see approach. But if it is one of those where in year 3 of my franchise the commentator says something about what happened in week 3 of the real NFL that will take away from the experience and be a bad change.

Regarding the bolded, not only would that make logical sense, it happens in the NFL dude.

That said, I would be surprised if non-contact injuries ever make it into Madden though.

From the interview with Clint I'm going to guess it will be A.
Since we will be getting commentary updates for CFM I hope they are generic lines so the commentary team doesn't talk about what happened to a certain player in 2017 when I'm playing in 2020.

That's a logical injury because he likely tore his ACL off of that cut he tried to make.
What I'm saying is:
I don't want my Free Safety playing back in a Zone - while a running play is stuffed in the back field - and he all of a sudden goes down out of nowhere and is out with an Arm Fracture or Bruised Sternum.
I just don't want the engine to treat the injuries like "Throwing Darts Blindfolded at a Mannequin" and whichever body part the dart strikes, that's the injury we're rolling with. :lol::lol:

Yeah I think we can all agree that we don't want sniped by Chuck Norris injuries in the game lol

I'm nervous to see how they implemented it but I'm very optimistic about the off ball injuries, something I've wanted back in the game for a long time.
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With me being strictly a franchise player only, this is great news. A very welcome step towards realism.

Okay, enough with this mentality: would you rather have off-ball injuries in Madden NFL 18, or not have off-ball injuries in Madden NFL for another year?
The bottom line is that the feature didn't exist before, it took man-hours and money spent to build the feature, and now the feature exists. Tiburon did real actual work to give us the "sim" community something we actually wanted to see in the game and something we asked for very loudly. On that account the Tiburon team absolutely deserves credit for doing that work and crossing an item off the community's wishlist.
The alternative mindset is that we can keep moving the goal posts, we can keep discrediting any sim-minded addition which Tiburon can budget into the game, because all the things we want "should already be there", as if we are the only audience Madden has and we're so important. Personally speaking, I'd rather enjoy whatever game they are able to make every year.

Yeah this has the potential to be immersion breaking. Say I'm in year two and in the real NFL the 49ers trade for Kirk Cousins, but in my franchise he's still on Washington, and I'm playing against them. Hearing how the 49ers just traded for Cousins while he's still wearing a Redskins uniform is going to be pretty stupid.
So, what we DON'T need is real NFL updates for Franchise. What we DO need is just additional commentary.

I agree. The mindset is kinda like having your cake and eating it to. We ask for a feature, and then when they listen we complain about having to ask.
...We are sorta acting like nagging wives aren't we? lol

They don't necessarily need anyone to go down if they're injured, plenty of guys get hurt in real life and walk off the field without ever stopping the game. Just have them announce player Xhas left with an injury, more info to come

This makes a huge difference when it comes to roster building with offensive lines. No more filling your back-up slots with scrubs since they won't play anyway, going to have to keep some legit backups around.

Yes, that's very true.
To use your example though:
Commentator: "It appears we have a man leaving the field on what looks likely to be an injury. Let's hope it's nothing too serious." Random guy turns out to be my Nickel Back or Safety.
....then I go back to the replay of that particular down, and it turns out that all the injured party did was drop back into covering a zone without being touched by any other player.
I just don't want to see things like that turn out to be actually devastating injuries, like the good old Broken Collarbone, Upper Arm Fracture, Broken Finger, etc.....from just merely dropping back into coverage.
That's why I said I hope they make "logical sense" if a guy who received no contact on a play was to end up sustaining an injury.

Nope. I have purchased Madden for 17 years in a row so I get to have the position that "yes I'm happy to have this back" but "no not having this basic element was not acceptable and having it back now is necessary but nearly sufficient to getting cfm where it needs to be"
No moving goal posts, no discrediting, no whining.
I'm not particularlynegative or positive on the game. I suppose I'm very positive on gameplay and disappointed with cfm. I call it like I see it. I.e. I have consistently said the commentary was an innovation and a true home run and I'm excited to have that in cfm.

>Be in franchise mode playing against the Falcons
>Be 2020 season
>Russell Wilson just won the MVP in my franchise
>Commentary says "reigning MVP Matt Ryan" because it's a new update
>Immersion = gone.
Hopefully you can see the problem with updated commentary based on the real NFL season in Franchise mode...

Yup, I'm at the end of my 2020 season with Raiders and the commentators still bring up the whole "cam newton v broncos" thing - even though my RB has rushed for 1650+ yards for 4 straight seasons, they never seem to remember that. I have no idea how they will add this to CFM without being forced to keep it massively generic - which is probably a good thing

I didn't say anything to the contrary, I said it's improvement for me over what we had previously. I didn't enjoy the repeated commentary in season 1.
Did anyone play out a season in Madden 17? The commentary was boring and drab when you knew what lines were coming and when. Hoping you can see where I am coming from as well.

Off the ball injuries are great. Yay. Sorta.
I say sorta because in Madden 17 at multiple points, on multiple different CFM's Id have 4 to 6 guys out with "Torn Shoulders" or "Broken Collarbones" for 4 to 6 weeks.
I never once saw a knee injury, or foot, or concussion.
Basically whats "In the game", is not "In the game" as far as madden goes.

Wasn't ever a big NFL 2k fan, but I liked when you were running the ball & the player would slow down & limp. I know that's not away from field of play, but it was going in the correct direction. Surly EA ( by now ) is finally attempting to make it happen in some form.
: Peace

ACL tears, MCL Tears, Broken Foot are all in game and I have seen them in our CFM. Concussions aren't in game, and will never again be in the game, due to the NFL's oversight on the game.

It does mean non-contact, but a former OL now Developer for EA fought to put these into the game because it was a hot request on Twitter.
It was also a hot request on Twitter to have updated commentary in CFM.

It has been confirmed by Clint that the "Off Ball" Injuries are injuries to O lineman and defensive lineman that are engaged in interactions that don't involve the ball carrier.

the commentary gets same-ey in offline cfm so not fussed, except my "ossie newsome" hb or the sarcasm for fast forwarding thru sb halftime
even though i knew about the oline not being injured ive always had 9-10 oline on roster (normal is 8?), im guessing people will use ps to bolster oline subs as the only ps steals i see are cb/olb/wr
Clint's response wasnt nice imo. off ball to me means everyone, the sarcasm wasnt warranted given ea's history of saying something that is open to intepretation
the HS doesnt bother me as i play coach mode
here is a question though: traits, are they needed if you play coach mode? as sopme players exhibit those traits before its bought for them

Lol. Oh yeah. 'Ooohhh. A little tap-estry. I like it.'
. I heard that one quite a bit when making a possession catch on the sidelines. They had 3-4 variants, but I got this one quite a bit.
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Injuries definitely got tuned at least once, and IMO more that, during the year in M17. In the beginning it was just breaks and tears with the player always being gone for several weeks.(lMO it was overdone because of Big Decisions) A few months later I was seeing bruises and strains with players only being gone for a couple of quarters, like we use to always see in Madden. I hope it doesn't revert back to early M17 levels of tuning, because that kind of thing seems to happen quite often with the next years version of many sports games and it then has to be fixed again.

Nice to see this finally make it in. Hopefully, manual injuries are next up on their list.

No sir, it's not nagging at all, OL injuries during gameplay isn't a feature, it's a fix to an issue within the injury system. There is an entire thread about this from last year, in that thread is this same MO of defending this fix not being added, by devs and others, as a feature that isn't priority, doesn't matter much to most gamers, etc, just completely downplayed. Now that's it claimed to be done, it's supposed to be praised as the greatest thing since the stove, according to some of those same "others". Imo, that's far more exemplary of trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Everything doesn't have to be lumped into praise or criticism, the lack of OL injuries during gameplay deserved criticism but that doesn't mean the inclusion of it now, deserves praise. OL being able to be injured during gameplay is a good thing, that should be acknowledged and I'm glad to see it fixed..
That said, I'm unclear on what "offball injuries" actual entail and will be interested to learn how this impacts the overall injury system.

I saw OTHER teams get them during the season, broken feet. MCL and ACL tears.
But to not have concussions? Which is a HUGE thing in the NFL these days? Just sad.
But yeah, what Im saying is that during gameplay, which I did with every game of my season. Id see two injuries. That was it.
The rest of the injury list was definitely full of other injuries though.

They get no say in that. The directive comes down from the NFL and they have to follow it per their licensing agreement.

Oh I completely understand that. Its just sad is what Im saying.

It might have been down played on here, but there was a strong backing for it to Clint on Twitter, including yours truly. There were big long discussions about it on Twitter.
That's the only thing I wished to add.
Offball, based on what Tverts mentioned from an interview from Clint, is player interaction injuries away from the ball with the OL/DL
My question beyond that would be if a S is tangled with a LG away from the ball, could an injury occur during that.

I'm hoping off ball injuries mean anyone can get injured if they are engaged with someone like when the WR/DB interact at the line of scrimmage or when a Safety blitzes but gets blocked by a Guard.

Exactly what I'm referring to, I'm not clear on what offball injuries entails, the only thing I've seen stated by devs is it means OL can be injured from engagement/blocking with the DL. I try not to presume much with regard to how Madden additions perform in game, offball injuries sounds like an inclusion of all player to player interactions/engagements other than the ball carrier but guess we'll just have to wait for more details to be sure.

I'd be very surprised if this didn't open up injuries for interactions between all players, although I think that they may do something to make K's and P's still
be invulnerable since the A.I. of those players isn't good enough to keep themselves out of harms way.

the game that isnt mentioned anymore had gameday scrubs due illness that morning. now that was painful as there was no way to now until they mention it

Speaking from an engineer's persoect, you are 100% wrong. This absolutely is a new feature and not a bug fix.
It is absolutely not a bug fix because the functionality never existed in the first place. Clint Oldenburg flat-out said last year that off-ball injuries don't happen because injury checks are only calculated for collisions involving the ballcarrier.
It might be a returning feature if you can remember any Madden game which had OL injuries. I literally have only seen one OL injury in Madden ever and that was following a fumble recovery by the lineman, so between that and Oldenburg's first-party insight as to how the game works, I doubt the functionality has ever existed in Madden. At worst this is a change request, a modification or extension of existing functionality. A change request is also not a bug fix, it is building on top of an already-working feature.
If that functionality did exist but never triggered - if off-ball injuries were supposed to happen and they didn't (which was not the case, but let's pretend for a moment) - then it's bug. However, non-existent code can't possibly produce a bug because non-existent code never runs.

Stop putting words in my mouth, I never even used the word "praise" in my post. Literally what I said was that we should enjoy the new feature and more importantly recognize that the developers listened to the wishes of the most vocal fans of their game and we should credit them - not praise, credit, there's a difference - for responding to something the sim community requested.

Madden last gen definitely offensive line injuries in the game. So much so kickers and punters would be put on the line in place of them and perform just as well.......

Yeah. As someone who played a few seasons of Madden 06 (Xbox/PS2) I can definitely confirm that OL injuries were very much possible without a fumble recovery or tackle being required. On my current franchise I have a 90 OVR LG that I drafted that is currently out and I also remember seeing Willie Roaf get injured a number of times. They're rare, likely because the only thing that I believe triggers them is the pancake animation, but they're there.

On the feature/fix debate, it is semantics. Off ball injuries were not present in the game, they are now; so I call it a feature. A bug would indicate it was intended to be there but didn't work. Think of it like buying a used car that doesn't have AC. Are you going to call the mechanic and tell them your AC is not working? Could we both agree that AC should be a standard feature on all contemporary cars?
Like CM said, we are not praising them for putting this in the game. Truth be told I think it was one of the minimum expectations going into this year. But no comment that I've read justifies your use of hyperbole here. No one is even coming close to warrant the stove comment.

At least we're going to get 100s of rookie names added to the commentary. Can't wait for them to try and say some of the madden generated names haha Kirby Kirby or Ivory Hunter.
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This wasn't a bug fix. But the injury system was very poorly designed and implemented. It left a very important feature of NFL football missing from the game.

I meant to add to my post that even though I quoted your post, I wasn't referring to you with "others" and I wasn't directly referring to any individual but all who took that POV in the thread I referenced, which I'm not even sure you even posted in.
Now, I didn't say anything about a "bug" fix, nor was I talking about offball injuries when referring to fixing an issue, I specifically stated OL injuries in gameplay. I can't stand "playing semantics" and that's not what I was doing, there is a distinct difference in offball injuries and OL injuries during gameplay with regard to Madden. I'm not making that up, feel free to check my post history on this topic last year, I've consistently tried to make that distinction to avoid any misunderstanding. Reason being, last year when it was revealed that OL couldn't be injured during game play, people asking about that in tweets, often got inflated to a request for offball injuries. Depending on what offball injuries entail, I'd probably agree with that being a feature but like I stated in my post, I don't know what all offball injuries entail and I was specifically referring to OL injuries in game play.
With that distinction hopefully being clear, having OL being hurt in game play, like all the other positions is NOT a feature, it's a fix to an issue that has existed for awhile. As others have stated, there was a time in Madden, prior to CCM, when OL could be injured in game play.
Finally, of course the stove comment was hyperbole, you'd be hard pressed to find many general inventions as good as the stove, much less anything done in a video game. The point was to emphasize how extreme some POVs had shifted about OL injuries from last year when they weren't in game to now that they are.

I really like that they added the off ball injuries as this will put true realism in the CFM's that everyone plays