Madden NFL 12 Patch Details
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Madden NFL 12 released in a fairly good state – at least compared to sister product NCAA Football 12. While it certainly had areas in which improvement could be provided through a patch there were no broken features or completely pressing issues that demanded attention. Instead the patch could be used to enhance certain aspects of the game and fix various annoyances.
Areas most discussed in regards for the upcoming patch included the constant rain in Franchise mode affecting a few teams, lack of a battle for the ball between the WR and DBs, punt and kick return blocking, QB sneak effectiveness against non-goal line defense, custom playbook organization, scouting in Franchise mode, and the long shot of the bunch – commentary.
Today EA Sports released full details on what to expect in the first comprehensive patch for Madden NFL 12. Some of these things have been worked on (rain, QB sneak, custom playbooks, commentary) while others been inexplicably left alone (punt/kick return blocking, DBs inability to play the ball, no additional scouting). Commentary is actually mentioned though I would caution that the overall audio quality and level matching along with variety of lines probably won’t be much if at all improved and instead expect it to be primarily fixes for some of the incorrect calls (and maybe the referring to some players as numbers rather than their names) frequently being made by the duo.
The patch has reached the certification stage with Microsoft and Sony meaning it can be expected out within the next two weeks. Continue on for the full patch list and leave any thoughts in the comments!
Custom Playbooks
- Fixed an issue where newly added sets would create their own formation category instead of grouping them in the same Set and Formation they were being added to. This should reduce some clutter in your playbooks going forward.
- Fixed rare issue where some placeholder text would show up if you removed the last play for all game situations.
- Fixed an issue where gameplans that had 0 plays in them would cause players to bundle together on the field. This was always avoidable by not setting 0 plays in your gameplan, but in the future this is prevented.
- Fixed an issue in Madden Ultimate Team where your Ultimate Team playbook would get replaced with your default playbook (per your “My Settings”).
- Similar to above issue users could create a gameplan with 0 plays, which would then cause players to bundle up at the line of scrimmage and force an encroachment on the defense. This has been fixed.
- Fixed an issue where users could pause the game with three seconds left in a quarter causing a lock up to occur. When the other player left the game the other would get a win.
- (Cover 4) – Safeties with Inside Deep ¼ zone drop back instead of read-n-react on Run plays.
- If the CPU tries to run down the play clock (late in halves) and runs an auto-motion play, they will not start the play early enough or hike the ball before the play clock expires as the player is still in motion.
- Tuned down the frequency to block field goals by users running off the edge.
- When a two-point conversion is booth reviewed and ruled no good, the game clock will run while selecting a play on kickoff.
- Fixed issue when teams ran a QB Sneak the QB would get a speed burst.
- Fixed issue when a user aims the L-Stick in any direction and pump fakes (using RB/R1 defenders in a QA Spy assignment) that will immediately blitz the QB, leaving defensive assignments.
- Fixed issue where live balls on muffed punts that are recovered in the end zone were resulting in a touchback rather than a safety.
- Fixed an issue where users were awarded coins when their friends quit out of a head-to-head game.
- Fixed a situation where user with a maxed out deck could get locked up in the My Trades screen.
- Fixed issue where previous MUT fans could not earn the “This one is easy” achievement/trophy for creating their MUT team in Madden NFL 12.
- Removed an exploit where a MUT player grieve another player through encroachments and other penalties but not lose contract time from their players. They would also receive coins.
- Fixed several of the most common crashes and online disconnection issues for both platforms.
- Optimized performance in “Play Now” team select to prevent slow down/hitching when scrolling teams
- Improved the online leaderboards to be more accurate.
- Fixed several issues with commentary and PA.
- Addressed issue where users with large amounts of save data sometimes could not get into online head-to-head games.
- Lowered the frequency of rain games in Franchise Mode.
- Improved the field’s texture on PS3.
- The ‘recent games’ section for head-to-head games uses the wrong colors for winner & loser. This issue has been addressed.
- Fixed the import draft class bug where kickers and punters were being drafted in the top 10.
- Fixed issue where a user only appears as online in the Communities Member List if they’re inside the community feature.
- Fixed issue where in Franchise, editing a player will remove their player roles.
- Fixed issue where when the maximum number of entrants for a room has been reached, after a user leaves the room, they’ll be taken to a new room when they try to reenter it.