and you were just communicating a humorous one liner and he has to disect it a little too seriously LOL come on Roy, jeff is just having fun. he did it for JBs n Gschwendts eyes, not for yours LOLOriginally Posted by JeffHCross
...Patriots look like they are winning another one, dangit....
I understand that it may not be simple to program and that it may take time...the game has been in production for 25 years and EA is supposedly the leader of the industry, they should be able to hire the best and the brightest, they've both had time and should have the resources available to get the job done.
The problem is a lack of focus on these little details.
My sentiments exactly.
Since Oneback brought up FIFA and NHL getting new physics engines, what happened to the physics upgrades from NCAA '11? I seem remember this being touted as the future of the franchise. The only thing that seems to remain from that title is player acceleration. Have you noticed it as well?
these guys earned their jobs through college etc. and I wont say they dont know what they are doing.
but I question what and how they do it when I can look at ESPN 2k5, and PES/winning 11 on old gen and 2k basketball on old gen and how well they made the sports on field/play details compared to anything from EA football games. Those other games took larger jumps in much shorter times...why ..why damnit..why ? cry/cry/cry
That's pretty funny.
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I recall Locomotion and gang tackling from NCAA 11. Both are still there. Gang tackling's actually been expanded upon. What are you thinking of that has disappeared?
Twitter: @3YardsandACloud
rule number 1 = always test embedding first
In a coaches wet dream would a player actually follow those rules on every play. You are creating perfect scenarios. Let's add to this, assuming you want a pure simulation of the game. Does a WR make perfect cuts in real life? Do defensive players blow assignements? Does a lineman make every block? There is so much more to making AI realistic then simply creating a set of rules.
I just think you are oversimplifying the logic used in the AI. Anyone can pick up a books on how football is coached and drawn up but since executing it in real life is not an exact science, trying to program it is even more challenging. Not to mention trying to balance a game that is enjoyable for hardcore football guys and the casual players.
A play is NEVER ran PERFECTLY. It's impossible for EVERY player to do their assignment PERFECTLY. So, to do what is even outlined by oneback above, you'd have to add probably another 3 sets of scenarios for EACH point of the breakdown of that WR's route based on if that receiver fucked up his route somewhere along the way, got pressed at the line of scrimmage, where the first down marker is, whether or not he's the hot receiver, along with whether or not he reads the coverages correctly and so on. All of that, for ONE player out of 22.
I can guarantee you that the breakdown for a defensive player's assignment in zone coverage is even more complicated and has even more variables to work out.
I mean, we're talking about a game that doesn't even have blown assignments programmed into the game. Blown assignments don't exist, at all, in NCAA or Madden football. Getting beat because of pure speed/better route running or superior playcalling/blocking abilities/running abilities are the only variables that can happen in either football game. What you people are asking for would be something that would take YEARS to even come close to being even 50% of what you want. And that's just trying to build the fundamentals of football as a base. There's no possible way ANY company could come up with something THAT complex in a time frame that requires yearly releases or even bi-yearly releases. I don't care how many people they have working on it and how much time is spent with actual coaches and players. There's no possible way something THAT complex could be done without many years worth of time and research being spent on it. There's a reason a football game hasn't come out that's come anywhere close to replicating real football and it's not because of laziness, bad programming, or anything like that.
Last edited by morsdraconis; 09-12-2011 at 11:04 PM.
First of all I am in no way attacking the guys who work at EA Sports but traditional sports games are not exactly the hotbed for your best and brightest (both in programming and the artistic side). You have yearly updates, creativity in sports games is limited due to the constraints of making such a game and the budgets. Most of your top programmers tend to lean themselves toward projects that allow them to be more creative. Same goes with the artists.
Ponder this. When was the last time you saw a sports game win anyone's overall Game of the Year?
You're right, the route is not run the same way all the time, there are certain ways to run this route against bump, off-man however variations from the core set of rules is all determined by player ability. Not all receivers run correct precise routes, this can be handled by attribute ratings. Players with low route running skills will round off their routes, low awareness will cause the receiver to not make their breaks at the correct depth all the time or will not break off their route correctly (flatten their route to the sideline when a defender is over the top of them).
Defenders blowing assignments would be tied to awareness, linemen making blocks would be largely dependent on the ratings differential between them and the defender, I sent a pretty lengthy document to EA on how this would work.
The fact remains the rules/assignments are what drives decisions made on a football field, very little in football is ad lib.
Exactly and the closest thing we have right now is the QB making a poor throw or a player slipping in the rain or snow. Even that has to be tough to program simply based on all the % involved.
Can you imagine implementing a realistic AI that implements players missing assignments or running a wrong route. It is far more than just a simple attribute. A WR running the wrong route or wrong yardage would involve a % as to when he would run one during a game, what incorrect route or yardage they would go and then factor in what they will do once the route is run incorrectly. Now go and figure out how to program in a SS playing a deep zone when he is supposed to be in man to man.
Now after all that calculating figure out what % of gamers would actually want this level of realism an not end up throwing their controller into the TV.
Forget 22 players, lets concentrate on 2. Tennis is a pretty simple game, two players a few lines a net, a couple racquets and a ball. Simple enough, pong seemed really easy to make. You can go the Virtua Tennis route and limit the amount of fault/unforced errors in the game, easing the frustration for the casual guys. Then you have a tennis game like Top Spin that tries to be more of simulation of the sports. More unforced errors but the problem is how do you create such realism and still try to sell enough units to make a profit. They have gone a few different routes over the years with risk shots and then removed those this year and made positioning and timing of the swing a bigger factor in creating these unforced errors. It is still nowhere what you would see in a real tennis match but gives you a bit more realism just in much smaller doses. Casual users just do not want a bunch of balls hitting the net and double faults. It is a very tricky thing to do, creating a more realistic game and trying to keep a large audience.
Again, I just think some people make programing a game far easier than it really is.
Here is the document I sent to EA on line interaction:
The first step is to fix the blocking schemes both rushing and passing. This was my core idea behind NCAA Playbook and in writing these articles I’ve been trying to come up with a plan to use the existing game engine to improve the offensive and defensive interactions.
As mentioned the blocking scheme is paramount, next however the defensive reaction to the different types of blocks utilized in the blocking scheme must be addressed and from what I see most of the fundamentals are there to make this work.
The great thing about defensive football is every player has a rule based upon his position in the defensive scheme, how well that player plays his position is largely dependent on his awareness within that scheme.
For example, a defensive lineman fires off the ball stepping first with his gap side foot and recognizes the offensive lineman executing a reach block, he must now widen with his second step, fighting to maintain outside leverage, diagnose the play, disengage from the blocker and pursue the ball carrier.
This scenario would play out in the game first by the offensive lineman being assigned the reach block in the plays creation, now at the snap of the ball the offensive lineman would first take a lateral step then with his second step attack the outer half of the defensive player. How quickly he would be able take these two steps would be dependent on his run block footwork rating (RBF) which already exists in the game.
At the same time the defensive lineman will step with his gap side foot, recognize the reach block then widen with his second step as I mentioned above. Here the awareness rating would come into play when the defensive lineman must recognize the type of block being executed. The higher his awareness the quicker the player would take his complementary step. Conversely, the lower his rating the easier time the offensive lineman would have of initially winning the block. In this case the offensive player would be able to gain outside leverage.
At this point the players now collide, with each player trying to create movement. Here the hit power rating would come into play. The player with the higher hit power rating would gain an advantage in creating movement and fitting into the block or stunning the blocker, possibly allowing the offensive player to drive the defender out of the hole or the defensive player quickly disengaging the blocker. If hit power is equal there would be an initial stalemate with little movement. Here I would like to see the additions to the tackling engine added here where weight, momentum and angle are factored in when creating the initial movement or pop.
Now that initial movement has been created there will be a couple factors that determine the ultimate winner of the block. First the initial winner of the block must be factored in, if the offensive lineman was able to reach the outside shoulder of the defender or if the defender was able to maintain outside leverage they must be given an advantage. Next, the winner of the second part of the block must be factored in, if the offensive player had the higher hit power and was able to fit into the block even after losing the footwork battle he should now have the advantage as he will be in position drive the player out of the hole. Conversely, if the defensive player loses the initial footwork battle but has a higher hit power rating, he is able to stun the blocker and will now have the advantage in regaining his gap responsibility.
Now this is where player strength will come in, if the offensive player has been able to fit into the block by having the higher hit power rating he will now have a weighted advantage over the defensive player and if he has a higher strength rating than the defensive player he will now be able to create movement. Also, due to the offensive player having a weighted advantage over the defensive player he could potentially have a lower strength rating than the defensive player and still create movement. The same scenario would play out on the defensive side, if the defender was able to maintain outside leverage and stun the blocker due to having the higher hit power rating he is now able to lock out the blocker and maintain his gap responsibility. Even if the offensive blocker has the advantage by being able to fit into the block this does not mean the defender has lost the battle. If the defender has a higher strength rating than the offensive lineman and is able to overcome the offensive lineman’s advantage as a result he can now lock the blocker out and take the advantage.
Now that we have a winner on the block the play is still not over and the defender is still going to try and disengage from the blocker. The defense is at a disadvantage in that it does not know where the ball is going and here and must diagnose the play before breaking the block and pursuing the football. This is where the defender’s play recognition rating comes into play. The higher the play recognition the quicker the defender is able to move to the next step which is breaking the block, the lower the rating the longer he will be held up on the block attempting to diagnose the play and the longer the blocker would have a chance to refit and gain control of the blocker. This would entail adding a block refit rating or just simply leaving the defender locked up on the blocker until he is able to diagnose the play. If the defender is at a disadvantage at this point he will attempt to regain his gap responsibility as he will need to accomplish this task before he can diagnose the play.
The defender is now ready to either break the block or regain his gap responsibility. I would like to see ratings assigned to each of the different types of moves a defender can use to break a block or use during a pass rush as well as the players tendency to use each of them, but this is about utilizing the ratings already in place. The defenders break block rating will be the key, if the defender is in control of the blocker he will require a much lower break block rating to be able to disengage, however if the offensive player has the advantage the defender would need a higher break block rating to fight back through the blocker and regain control of his gap responsibility. Additionally, if the defender is unable to either break the block or regain gap responsibility but the weighted score for each player is within a certain amount of each other the defender would have the ability to lunge after the ball carrier and possibly get a tackle.
At this point there are three possibly outcomes: the defender has defeated the blocker and now will utilize his pursuit rating to pursue the ball carrier, the defender and blocker have a stalemate where neither wins but the defender still has the potential to stick an arm out and possibly make a tackle, or the blocker wins and is able to control the defender.
This would require animations for each of the block types and complementary defensive reactions and new code to handle the weighted score from each step of the block to determine the eventual winner. In the end however you would have a blocking interaction system that would be true to life and provide a much better experience for the gamer.
Never said it was going to be easy. But, it is not impossible.
Have you ever coded a game of any type? The only reason I mention this is that you are feeding information on how things are done properly but that is the easy part. Taking that information and coding it into a game is a whole different ball game. You are simplifying things by tying them to base attributes. There are layers of code within those attributes that would have to be defined to make additional changes.
It is not as simple as if a WR have a 80 AWR then he will run a incorrect route 1 out of 50 times (and even there you have to be careful with your % to ensure happiness amongst all your customers or create more code by adding new sliders). You have to define what all happens when that one out of fifty times occurs. There has to be code to to tell the player what to do in those instances and even that could be affected other attributes and ratings. The more variables you add within the game the more of a consoles memory you start eating into. You can make the smartest football game in the world that runs as realistic as tonight's game but if a console can't handle it... Even with the best and the brightest working on that game. That is why these companies have people coding new things for next gen systems. Things that are simply not feasible on this gen due to memory and CPU restraints.
More variables for you to ponder over as to why the games sometimes seem to not advance to your liking, as fast as you wish it would.
Last edited by bdoughty; 09-13-2011 at 12:13 AM.
I thought rule #1 was to check my spelling?
Anyway, there is a work around for the embedding. You simply hit the play button, followed by clicking the link "Watch on YouTube". Hey, you play NCAA '12 so aren't you used to working around the small inconveniences?
Of course it isn't and it is great to see people invested in the game and taking personal time trying to make the game we love better. I just think you need to understand the limitation that exists. The limitations of the resources working on the game. The limitations of how much coding you can put into the game. Not from a game size aspect, although it exists on the 360 Disc but more on the hardware end (memory/CPU usage).
Couldn't have said it better myself, and I have just a rudimentary knowledge of programming languages. The amount of variables in the game now must be in the hundreds of thousands (EA programmers have specifically said before that looking up specific parts of how things work - say, for example, how run blocking footwork/strength work compared to how just the run blocking attribute itself works - are so deeply imbedded in the code, that, some of them, are basically impossible to tell truly what all they effect - This from people that actually PROGRAM THE GAME and have the source code in front of them on a daily basis) with all the different things that they've added. And, yet, all of that absolutely pales in comparison to what is being detailed so easily here.
Again, I say, the amount of work needed to even reach 50% of what is being asked here would take several game cycles to come to fruition. Several game cycles of non-stop working on just it and nothing else. No company has that kind of resources to set aside an entire team to work on something that could take 5 years to code without bringing in some type of money on it. Especially in a market climate where it's highly unlikely that this generation of consoles would still be the best available in that time period, only causing the amount of time spent on the project to be extended as they adapt it for the new tech available.
My knowledge of programming is limited these days to html and C++. I was old school programming with RPG II (not a game mind you actual code we used for our IBM System/36 setup).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG_II#Sample_Code
I am so old.
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