Madden NFL Mobile Gameplay Analysis

The product manager of the mobile version of FarmVille 2 analyzed Madden NFL Mobile in detail on the pages of the Deconstruction of Fun blog. We offer an adapted version of his material in Russian.

The Madden game series is one of the leading game franchises today. Its total circulation for 20 years of existence is 200 million (boxes with the game, not free mobile downloads).

I myself, before getting acquainted with Madden Mobile, last played the projects of the series more than 10 years ago. It was Madden 2001 for PlayStation 2 with Eddie George on the cover and heavy Xzibit bass throbbing in the soundtrack. Then it was one of the leading projects of the console, demonstrating all its power, striking with smooth models of players.

But, of course, it wasn’t just about the schedule. The main charm of Madden was that strategy was as important in it as the athletic training and skills of football players.

Perhaps this is largely due to this, the name Madden has become synonymous with American football. EA has created a brand that can compete on an equal footing with any other sports brand in the world far beyond the video game industry.

Its translation into a mobile project is a very difficult task. However, EA is no stranger. She has been doing chemistry for several years, trying to calculate a workable formula for mobile free-to-play. And, you know, they’re finally on the right track. EA ended last year on a high note with a series of two short strikes: Madden Mobile and SimCity: Build It, which can be read here (in Russian – here).

Madden Mobile

Madden Mobile was released in August last year and since then has consistently remained in the global box office top within the first 40 positions. What is the formula behind this success? Let’s take a look.

Gameplay

For those who are not very familiar with American football, a little introduction to the basics of the game: players take turns playing offense and defense.

When attacking, the main task is to bring the ball to the opposite side of the field. The attack uses a variety of strategies (plays) in order to carry the ball as far as possible. These strategies are reduced to using certain categories of running and passes.

The playbook in the game offers a number of strategies to choose from

The defense at this time tries to resist the attack and also uses various strategies to prevent attacks.

Each game begins with a choice of attacking and defensive strategies. Strategies in Madden Mobile are preset and you can’t write your own, but you can choose the right one from a list containing up to 20-30 options.

On offense, you control a group of 11 players, and, according to the usual Madden approach, you can play for yourself: quarterback (control the offense, make a pass forward), receiver (take passes) and running backs (try to run as far as possible).

The attack begins with a tap. Depending on the chosen strategy, you either control the quarterback and then take control of the player to whom the receiver passes the ball, or try to guide the player through the opponent’s defense.

In the role of quarterback, the player now decides who to give the pass to

Defense has always been a difficult thing in Madden – before the ball is grabbed, it’s not so easy to manage a team of 11 people in real time. As on consoles, Madden Mobile allows you to take control of any of the members of the defensive team at any moment of the game, no matter if it’s a counterattack or a quarterback.

A draw leads to overtime, and in special cases, like a one-on-one game with friends, there are special rules (for example, there is no double overtime – the player with the most yards wins).

Game mods

Madden took the root mechanics from football and created several different types of games that will not let players get bored.

Seasonal Mod: Your team must complete a 16-game season against other NFL (AI) teams following 3 playoffs. In seasonal fashion, you play a full game consisting of four quarters of a minute each. After you finish the season, the quarters (a quarter, in fact, a half in American football) become longer and longer (first 1.5 minutes, then 2 minutes).

One-on-one: Asynchronous multiplayer. The games here are divided into runs (drives), there are no quarters here. The initiating player initiates the match by attacking. In a run, your turn ends when you either don’t “score”, or score, or when a touchdown comes.

One-on-one mode only allows you to control the attack in real time. Protection is always controlled by AI.

Live Events: Events allow players to take part in challenges, usually related to the real history of the NFL. For example, the test may be “to overcome the gap of 4 points in the fourth quarter and win the match” or something as simple as “make 4 passes in 5 attempts”.

Leagues: This is the Madden version of guilds or communities. Up to 30 people can join the league. The leagues also have some kind of clan battles called “League vs. League”. In this mod, one league competes with another league for 24 hours. During this time, players from one league can compete with players from another league up to three times. Points in these individual matches go to the leagues’ piggy bank (that is, if I earn 7 points in my game, it adds 7 points to my league points).

Game cycle

Playing football is only half of the Madden Mobile game cycle. Let’s take a look at it.

Pretty simple, right? By playing and winning fights, we get players with coins and experience. Participation in fights costs stamina. Actually, the latter can be called the energy mechanics of the game. We play, spend stamina, wait for its recovery or pay.

Coins allow users to purchase more packs with players from the Madden Store, which allows you to improve the team with the best players. Here, by the way, EA decided to go more along the path of Hearthstone than Pokemon – the gaming experience does not give your players experience to improve them, their upgrade is their replacement with cooler cards. So progress comes down to collecting the best players into a single perfect deck.

 The new level is a very joyful and important moment for the player

The user gets experience during interaction with any game modes. New levels give new players, more stamina (as well as 100% of its replenishment) and a bit of chasing.

The slow unlock of gaming strategies (plays), which is tied to the acquisition of experience, is an interesting way to build user progress and is perfectly perceived. New strategies leave a sense of novelty in the game, as they give more opportunities in choosing attack and defense strategies.

Meta games

The game cycle does not interact with the various game modes that Madden offers, but adds depth to new elements.

One-on-one matches use a parameter such as “fans”. In fact, this is a metric that reflects how well you compete with other users.

The point is to build a fan base. This will automatically raise the team to a higher division (for example, the number of the fan base reaches 10 thousand people and your team reaches Pro Level III). The higher the division, the more coins you earn in one-on-one mode. But we must understand that in such matches, you can both gain and lose fans.

Divisions are, in fact, PvP leaderboards

The second element that expands the game cycle is collectible cards – they are also players.

All player cards have a rating from one to one hundred, and are also divided by rarity into bronze, silver, gold and elite. Elite, as a rule, have a rating from 90 to 100.

When you start the game, you will most likely have bronze or silver players in your deck, but you can get stronger comrades for coins. The stronger the players, the more powerful the team, and the cooler it is, the more chances of winning against rivals.

 Players’ cards can be easily compared with each other

There is also another type of card in the game, which is called trophies. They can be used to create sets that can be exchanged for various things, for example, cool players.

Look, you can collect 10 elite trophy cards and swap them for one elite player. Trophy cards are earned when a player receives a particular achievement. The better the achievement, the better the trophy. Trophies can also be created as part of a set. For example, you have 9 elite trophies, and you only need one more trophy to get an elite player. We exchange 5 gold trophies for 1 elite trophy and – ta-dam – we now have an elite player.

So Madden Mobile wisely integrated elements of collectible battlers and “nested crafting mechanics” (more than one level of crafting) into their project.

A classic example of nested crafting mechanics is Hay Day, where, let’s imagine, you make brown sugar. To do this, you need to plant sugar cane (the first level of crafting), then the unprocessed sugar cane needs to be collected and sent to the sugar factory (the second level of crafting). And it’s the same here. We use gold trophies to create elite trophies (the first level of crafting), and then we spend elite trophies to create an elite player (the second level of crafting).

Retention

Good mobile games retain players by giving them rewards for short, medium and long gaming sessions. But the most important thing to keep in mobile is to give the player a reason to return to the project (hook). This is the equivalent of a cliffhanger in a TV pilot: giving users a piece of something delicious, making them want more.

The first gaming session in a mobile game absolutely needs a similar hook, and each subsequent gaming session should also arrive.

Here are the key techniques Madden uses to keep players coming back to the game over and over again:

– Creating a dream team

The main goal in Madden concerns the management of the team, since you act as its CEO.

Your game is dedicated to creating a team of players with a rating of 100 points. You start with a team of players with a rating of 60-65, raising the level of individual players, you improve the attack/defense indicators and the overall rating of the team.

Something like a dream team

The team rating system works to ensure that you always remember this. You see the rating and understand exactly what you need to work on.

But, of course, it’s not just about the numbers, but also about what they give. And they should give a feeling of a surge of new strength after the upgrade.

For me, this is a key moment in the game – how cool it is to feel the upgrade! Investing time in building a team, in its improvement – the game makes you come back and experience the joy of new forces.

– Collections

Collections are also a key part of the game. Once you started the collection, you started working on something that would make your team better. When you start a new collection, Madden forces you to come back again and again so that you can continue what you started.

There are three more cards to the “dream” is not enough

– Events

An important component of almost any free-to-play game is events today.

The promise of fresh new content should tempt players to return to the games. Madden is no exception here, and uses events to give players something new that will help preserve their interest in the game.

Events mostly rely on collectibles as rewards, but they drop out randomly, which forces players to keep coming back and coming back.

For example, I make a specific collection. To complete it, I need a specific map. I know that I can win it by participating in a particular event. The problem is that it is not a fact that I will get it 100% within the event, although this probability is higher than in other events. Knowing this, I am forced to participate in the event again and again.

It’s a very addictive mechanic – a combination of collections and chance.

Monetization: Buying boosters is back in fashion (but auctions can destroy this house of cards)

Madden is monetized through stamina and booster sales. Madden made the boosters in the game work exactly the same way they work in the real world. There is a very small chance that you will come across a powerful card, so you, as a rule, are content with the average.

It seems to me that I am starting from my own style of play, Madden does not earn a lot on stamina (at least in the early stages). I put the device aside before I ran out of power. If the game earns on new users, then it earns on the sale of boosters (in the first week of the game I laid out about $ 20 for them).

But something happens between 5-10 levels, which makes you realize that the store is far from what you need. This moment comes when you understand the power of auctions. This theme, which is the most important component of the game.

Social markets always create a similar problem. Hay Day suffers from the same problems simply because there is such a feature in the game. But in Madden – a real auction – without any cuts. You can sell and buy cards in the game at any price – the market is absolutely free, there are no restrictions (but, for example, there are such restrictions in Hay Day and you will not be able to sell an apple for more than 39 coins).

Why is there a problem?

Look, on the one hand, the authors of the game have very finely tuned the economy of the game, limiting cash rewards in each game mode. On the other hand, with the help of an auction, you can quickly raise unrealistic amounts here.

With the help of YouTube and Reddit, I learned about cards that are very easy to buy cheap, but can be sold for a lot. In 96 hours, I turned 30 thousand coins into half a million – it was enough to acquire elite players without buying a single booster for real money. For the balance of the game, this is not very good.

In general, I am happy to see that EA collects the pieces of the mosaic into a single puzzle, using proven mechanics from farms, PvP strategies and card battles, creating a well-built sports project. I doubt EA will rest on its laurels with this game and continue experimenting with Madden and other franchises.

A source: http://www.deconstructoroffun.com