• Some Changes to the Quarterback in NCAA Football 11


    NCAA Football Associate Designer Larry Richart has just posted a blog discussing some of the changes associated around the Quarterback in NCAA Football 11. These changes include a Gameplanning setting to allow you to set your defenders to aggressively attack a scrambling QB as well as changes to the throwing motion during a sack animation.

    Hey there NCAA Football fans, Larry Richart here, Associate Designer on NCAAź Football 11, to fill you in on some more gameplay improvements. As you know, the spring football season has come and gone and the fall season will be here before you know it! In our previous blogs we have talked about the new locomotion system and the all-new Real Assignment AI. We haven't stopped there as we are continuing to work hard on making this the best NCAA Football title yet.

    Today's blog is going to be all about the quarterback. As a former QB myself, I am always excited to talk about the most important position on the field, so let's get started! (Somewhere my former offensive lineman teammates want to slap me!) There are many different styles of QB's in the college game today that fit into a variety of unique offensive styles. You have your prototypical passing type QB's such as Sam Bradford and Jimmy Clausen, your option, running style QB's that you see at Georgia Tech/Navy/Army/Air Force and then you have the dual-threat QB's that do both like our cover athlete Tim Tebow.


    Defending the Dual-Threat QB

    The dual threat QB's are often times the hardest to stop. A defense must be able to account for the QB running the ball while also playing enough pass defense to not allow big plays through the air. Dual-threat QB's, just like in real life, have always been tough to handle in our NCAA Football titles. So this year we decided that we needed to give the user more options to help defend against them. The first step we took to help the user was to add a new defensive line audible that quickly puts both your defensive ends in contain assignments. If you are worried that your opponent might want to take off with his QB you can simply bring up your defensive line audibles before the snap and flick the R-Stick up. In the screenshots below you can see this in action and how the DE's assignments change from pass rush to contain.

    a. Contain QB assignment in UI


    b. Defensive Ends are shown with contain assignments (white play art)


    The second addition to helping the defense slow down scrambling QB's is a new option in the gameplan called "QB Contain." This option, if you set it to 'Aggressive', will cause your defenders to react quicker to a scrambling QB by leaving their zones sooner to try and contain the QB. This will affect defenders in short zone assignments such as hook, curl/flat, and flat zones. Defenders in deep zones will not be affected by this. Another thing to keep in mind when using this option is that only the best blitzer will actually rush. There are many factors that determine who that is, including which defender can break out of their zones, when they should break out of their zone, where the QB is currently scrambling to, how many receivers are in the defender's zone, is another defender already in a spy assignment, and how many defenders can actually have a chance to make the play.

    Choosing an aggressive QB contain can definitely help stop a scrambling QB, but will also have a greater chance of leaving receivers open as the defenders in short zones will view the QB as the bigger threat. If you want to play it safe and are not worried about the QB scrambling, you can set this option to 'Conservative'. In this gameplan, the defenders will stay on the receivers longer and give up the QB Scramble by not attacking him until he is right near the line of scrimmage.
    Another extra area of focus that we have done for NCAA Football 11 is to have defenders play more aggressive if their opponent is near the goal line. Defenders will no longer sit back and allow the QB to walk in for an easy touchdown as they will react and attack much sooner than they have in previous versions of the game

    Getting all 11 defenders to react appropriately is a difficult challenge, just ask any Defensive Coordinator, but we feel like we have found a good balance for these types of situations.

    Throw Out of Sacks

    The next big area that we wanted to address for NCAA Football 11 was to improve our 'throw out of sacks' feature. In previous versions of NCAA Football, we haven't been satisfied with our results on how this looks and feels in game. With that in mind we decided to redesign this feature and make it much more animation and ratings driven that it has ever been in the past. The first thing we did was to sit down as a team and determine what actually factors in to being able to throw out of a sack effectively and not so effectively. We came up with the idea that number one, Strength, is an important factor as well as the QB's Awareness. You don't often see the smaller, inexperienced QB's make great decisions when they are getting hit. Often times you see an ill-advised throw go up in the air and go the other way for a defensive touchdown. However, after watching a bunch of different games we noticed that players that were stronger and more aware (again Tim Tebow fits this description) and were able to still make decent throws and decisions while getting tackled by a defender.

    To accomplish a more animation driven result, our terrific gameplay animation team went through and added new branch windows for every sack animation. The branch windows include accurate, inaccurate and uncontrolled. These windows are placed throughout the animation and can overlap in certain parts. So for example, say you are starting a pass and you get hit by a defender and you are in between the accurate and inaccurate window, the QB's ratings will determine which pass will trigger. If the QB has higher strength and awareness ratings he will more than likely still be able to get off an accurate pass. However, a less aware, smaller type QB will more than likely throw the inaccurate pass. The same calculation happens when the window is between inaccurate and uncontrolled.

    We have also spent some time tuning the passes in general when throwing out of sacks. Obviously when a QB his hit during his throw he won't have the same zip as if he was standing upright in the pocket with nobody around him. Therefore, even on accurate passes, the QB will not be able to throw the ball as far or on the same trajectory as a regular bullet pass. You will also see the ball flutter a bit more as it's hard to get off a perfect spiral when a defender is all over you. We've tuned back the trajectory of the uncontrolled floaters that often times were turned into pick sixes. These passes will more often than not fall harmlessly to the ground.

    Another factor in determining where the pass will go when you attempt to throw out of a sack is the angle of your wrist at the point of your release. It's completely unrealistic to be able to throw a pass to a target at an extreme angle from where you are facing under normal situations yet alone when you are getting hit! So therefore, if you are trying to throw a pass back across your body while being hit, you will automatically throw an uncontrolled pass. So make sure you are aware of your QB's strength and awareness ratings the next time you are playing and try and throw a pass with a defender bearing down on you!

    Well that's it for this update, hope you enjoyed it and thanks for checking it out. Take care and we'll be back for some more gameplay updates soon.


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    Comments 42 Comments
    1. Kwizzy's Avatar
      Kwizzy -
      NICE! Really like the defensive options! So now the obvios question... Thoughts from the CD guys? Did you get a chance to play with this stuff quite a bit?
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by Kwizzy View Post
      NICE! Really like the defensive options! So now the obvios question... Thoughts from the CD guys? Did you get a chance to play with this stuff quite a bit?
      Unfortunately the gameplanning settings were bugged while we were down there for CD. We later discovered that they were flipped (set it to one, it changes to the other) but it was near the end of the week before we discovered that. Needless to say though, we didn't get to tinker that much with the gameplanning settings.

      As for the QB throws out of sacks... they definitely seemed improved. No more automatic lame ducks.
    1. Rudy's Avatar
      Rudy -
      I do like that a lot. Toning down the pick 6's and being able to change strategies on QB scrambling will probably be a big hit with the online crowd. Any word on whether they adopted the short/medium/long accuracy ratings? I'd love to see a QB release rating to differentiate between guys like Tebow who has a slow release vs. quicker passers.
    1. texacotea's Avatar
      texacotea -
      all sounds good but what happens when you contain and the manually blitz with that DE? CD guys can you comment on how the defensive audibles worked out?
    1. starter's Avatar
      starter -
      I like everything I'm hearing. The more options the better.
    1. Solidice's Avatar
      Solidice -
      Quote Originally Posted by gschwendt View Post
      As for the QB throws out of sacks... they definitely seemed improved. No more automatic lame ducks.
      that is good to hear, I think 75% of my Ints(probably exaggerating) were because of the ball floating in the opposite direction of my intended WR and the ball just happens to fall into a defenders hands.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt -
      Quote Originally Posted by texacotea View Post
      all sounds good but what happens when you contain and the manually blitz with that DE?
      I didn't test it but I can only imagine that since you're manually controlling that DE, it will ignore the contain assignment for the DE you're controlling but use contain on the opposite DE.
      CD guys can you comment on how the defensive audibles worked out?
      Truth be told, I wasn't even aware that the Contain assignment was there. Not sure if they just didn't tell us, I just didn't hear it, or it wasn't ready at the time.

      Either way though, I imagine it will be very handy this year. QBs are able to break the pocket easier than they have in past years... not necessarily in a bad way though. But I know playing RynoAid from Tradition Football, he was able to scramble more than I had expected him to. I definitely would have liked to have test out this contain feature had I known it was there.
    1. steelerfan's Avatar
      steelerfan -
      More good stuff from EA. It's been too easy to get 10 or more defensive TDs in a season. I'd like to think turnovers can be manageable and realistic in number without turning the INT sllder to 0, 5 or 10 and then just watching all the would-be-INTs dropped. This game has needed an infusion of simple incompletions, hopefully this will lend itself to that.
    1. rhombic21's Avatar
      rhombic21 -
      So they got rid of rush out for a worthless contain assignment that I could already do relatively easily? Figures.

      At least with the rush out there was a middle ground between "go stand in a completely unrealistic quasi-zone and don't rush the QB at all" and "get sucked in and give up the outside every time." Now they've basically eliminated that. Wonderful.

      This is also going to mess up a ton of the blitzes that we've created, as now you basically have no way to make some of the defensive line adjustments.
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Like Tommy said, the Gameplanning stuff wasn't at 100% at the CE, but I did use Contain as well as Spy coverage quite a bit when facing a scrambling QB. Personally, I found them effective in slowing them down.

      In a tourney game versus Tradition Football's rynoaid, I didn't use any contain, spy, etc. in the first half and he had great success running with the QB. In the second half, he was held relatively in check with the QB. He had a few good runs with his RB, but the QB was not as big of a factor. During that game, we had two of the gameplay devs watching and we kept a close eye on when defenders broke coverage to go after the QB and I think that's what Larry is referring to in his blog. The Gameplanning option sounds like it makes them break away even quicker to recognize scrambling QBs.
    1. rhombic21's Avatar
      rhombic21 -
      QB contain has always been helpful in containing the QB if they actually break the pocket, but the problem is that if the QB sits in the pocket, you only have two defensive linemen who are rushing. The other two guys will just stand there and won't try to rush the QB at all unless he gets outside. So it results in the QB having an eternity to sit in the pocket with no pass rush at all.

      Rush Out was an intermediate option between having no pass rush at all (contain) and no containment (normal). Now it looks like we won't even have that option. I am baffled as to why they think it is a good idea to do this. You could already hot route to the QB contain assignments on the old system, and if they wanted to add it to a quick hot route, then they should have used the face buttons rather than the joystick, like they did on last gen (when you could use Square and Circle to set the DEs to spy).
    1. Rudy's Avatar
      Rudy -
      I don't understand Rhombic. It looks like they kept the ability to spread the DL. Did they remove the option to have your DL rush to the outside as well (slant out line call)? What did they remove?
    1. rhombic21's Avatar
      rhombic21 -
      Yes, the removed the option to have the DL slant out and replaced it with a quick hot route to put both DEs in contain.
    1. Deuce's Avatar
      Deuce -
      I know I'm stating the obvious here but it all comes down to implementation. I hope with all the work they've done with the O line and getting the blocking corrected that something as obvious as proper DE technique would be corrected as well. If the audible sends the DE's on an outside rush rather then running sideways for 5 yards and stopping it should be ok. I guess we'll know when the demo comes out. Hopefully this concern will get back to EA and they'll explain further.
    1. Rudy's Avatar
      Rudy -
      Quote Originally Posted by rhombic21 View Post
      Yes, the removed the option to have the DL slant out and replaced it with a quick hot route to put both DEs in contain.
      I have to say I don't like the sound of that either although that may have improved the contain logic of the DL. Perhaps they take an outside rush and go after the QB but don't get deeper than the QB. That's what most DL should be doing when facing a scrambling QB. You don't want to get too far upfield and give him a rushing lane.

      I agree with Deuce. They redid the blocking schemes in the running game so let's see how this plays out in the pass blocking area before getting too upset.
    1. Rudy's Avatar
      Rudy -
      On a separate note, EA seems to have put the emphasis on containing scrambling QBs but is that head to head only? Can the CD guys comment on cpu quarterbacks and how often they will scramble? This is something that was done better on the PS2 and hasn't been done properly on the PS3. I'll always remember one of my first NCAA games ever. It was on NCAA '06 and I was playing against Reggie McNeal and he destroyed me. He threw for over 400 yards and torched me for over 100 yards rushing too. I couldn't believe how great that was. It never felt so good to lose a close game.
    1. Coachdenz's Avatar
      Coachdenz -
      The top pic, it kinda looks like a Caveman standing there at MLB in a Gators uniform. (g)
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Quote Originally Posted by Rudy View Post
      On a separate note, EA seems to have put the emphasis on containing scrambling QBs but is that head to head only? Can the CD guys comment on cpu quarterbacks and how often they will scramble? This is something that was done better on the PS2 and hasn't been done properly on the PS3. I'll always remember one of my first NCAA games ever. It was on NCAA '06 and I was playing against Reggie McNeal and he destroyed me. He threw for over 400 yards and torched me for over 100 yards rushing too. I couldn't believe how great that was. It never felt so good to lose a close game.
      That was still being tuned at the CE. Some did take off, but the sliding logic was also in the midst of being tweaked (CPU player would slide unnecessarily, for example). It sounds like they aimed to try and make scrambling more pronounced by certain QBs though. Just my thought, but that seems like it could be tough to find a happy medium.
    1. champ195797's Avatar
      champ195797 -
      If this is over used by your oppent do you think the draw play would be a great counter
    1. cdj's Avatar
      cdj -
      Quote Originally Posted by champ195797 View Post
      If this is over used by your oppent do you think the draw play would be a great counter
      I would think so. The blocking improvements have helped make the draw play a legit weapon as is, and if the DL is going out wide in contain, the draw should be very dangerous. I had success at the CE running it versus pass defenses like Dime.