Shotgun HB Counter?

[SmoothPancakes]

Simple. Snoop is the dirty little liar I've always believed him to be

So basically, if I go in and edit my Tulsa roster to make all my backs 5'9 or taller before I start my dynasty, I should be good then using HB Counter, if I'm following correctly.

[JeffHCross]

Based on what I saw, yeah.

[SmoothPancakes]

Based on what I saw, yeah.

Sweet. I'll jump on NCAA and give that a try later today when I get home from work.

[souljahbill]

Booyah!

[JeffHCross]

Smooth, did you have a chance to confirm my results? I always like independent confirmation

[SmoothPancakes]

Smooth, did you have a chance to confirm my results? I always like independent confirmation

Sorry about that. I was tired as hell after work last Saturday, and on top of that, I've only turned on my 360, maybe 2 or 3 times total, in the past week. Even though I had been up since 2pm Friday afternoon, and even though I only just fell asleep at 11am this morning, I got woken up unexpectedly a little bit ago and now even though I've only managed 3 1/2 hours of sleep, I'm unfortunately wide awake. So I'll jump on here shortly and test it. I may as well get some Madden action in while I actually can, so I'll be on for sure in a bit.

[SmoothPancakes]

Alright, I believe I can confirm your results Jeff. I just went in with Tulsa. They have 3 HBs 5'11" and one 6'1". I took one of the 5'11" guys and edited him down to 5'8" I was able to run 5 straight HB Counters successfully with the starter (5'11"), 5 straight successfully with the third stringer (6'1") and 5 straight successfully with the fourth string guy (5'11"). When it came time to test with the backup (edited down to 5'8" for this test), 5 straight attempts all instantly blown dead at the hand-off.

After that, I went back and changed that guy's height to 5'9" and went back into practice mode, 5 straight successful runs with HB Counter by all four HBs with heights 5'9" or higher.

Tested it further with some Pro, Multiple and Air Raid teams, all the same results. Failed attempts with backs 5'8" or shorter, Successful attempts with back 5'9" or taller.

I'm not gonna pretend I know or have any clue why something like height would completely make a play unusable. I've only had a couple basic beginner coding classes when I was entertaining the thought of majoring in Criminal Forensics my freshman year of college. So, coding-wise, why it fails 100% of the time for 5'8" or shorter backs but is 100% successful for 5'9" or taller backs, I don't know, but it appears to be an extremely easy fix, albeit a bit tedious if you go to the levels of editing the backs of all your opponents or all the HBs in the game so the CPU teams don't get screwed by the issue.

[JeffHCross]

I'm not gonna pretend I know or have any clue why something like height would completely make a play unusable.

The play gets blown dead after the HB makes his cut. I tried to see, via Replay, if their knee was touching the ground, but couldn't determine with certainty if that was the case. Even with "taller" backs, it comes damn close. So my guess is that, for some reason, shorter backs register their knee being on the ground. I'd imagine that's also why the Slow vs Normal speed made a difference ... at Normal speed, the animation may be fast enough to not register.

That's all theory though.

[SmoothPancakes]

The play gets blown dead after the HB makes his cut. I tried to see, via Replay, if their knee was touching the ground, but couldn't determine with certainty if that was the case. Even with "taller" backs, it comes damn close. So my guess is that, for some reason, shorter backs register their knee being on the ground. I'd imagine that's also why the Slow vs Normal speed made a difference ... at Normal speed, the animation may be fast enough to not register.

That's all theory though.

Hey, that theory works for me. If that's the case, talk about a game of inches.

At least now we have a fix for the problem, so I no longer have to completely leave HB Counters out of my custom playbook and out of my gameplan. Tulsa was already good with the shortest backs being 5'11". Now just to edit the rest of Conference-USA and my non-con opponents so they don't get screwed by that play.

[CLW]

Well I tried this play today in my offline dynasty. I have a little scat back as my starter and sure enough as soon as he touched the ball ruled down.

[SmoothPancakes]

Well I tried this play today in my offline dynasty. I have a little scat back as my starter and sure enough as soon as he touched the ball ruled down.

What's his height? Edit his height to 5'9" at try again with him. That's what Jeff discovered and came up with, and after I extensively tested it, changing my backs to a height of 5'9" or taller, I never had that play whistled dead on me again.

[CLW]

What's his height? Edit his height to 5'9" at try again with him. That's what Jeff discovered and came up with, and after I extensively tested it, changing my backs to a height of 5'9" or taller, I never had that play whistled dead on me again.

Dunno and do I really need to go through my entire schedule to make sure no backs are < 5'9"? Sure enough the next game the CPU runs the same play and boom ruled down upon handoff on 3rd and short (like 2-3 yards).

While its all well and good you guys have found work arounds I think its quite silly we as a community are just expected to deal with it and/or make sure each season we edit the entire roster to make sure everyone is X height.

[SmoothPancakes]

Dunno and do I really need to go through my entire schedule to make sure no backs are < 5'9"? Sure enough the next game the CPU runs the same play and boom ruled down upon handoff on 3rd and short (like 2-3 yards).

While its all well and good you guys have found work arounds I think its quite silly we as a community are just expected to deal with it and/or make sure each season we edit the entire roster to make sure everyone is X height.

I completely agree. But at least we actually were able to find a work around for now. I was about to completely remove the play from my custom playbook. As for the other teams, if anything I'll just do it on a week by week basis, wait until an opponent comes up that week and then check their roster real quick. I'm certainly not going to change every back, just the first and second stringers. Unless the game becomes a blowout, I shouldn't have to worry about 3rd or 4th string backs getting in the game, at least not often and long enough to have this play come up.

[JeffHCross]

FWIW, I've played a decent amount of CPU teams, includes ones with scat backs, and I don't recall seeing this play called once, by anybody. It's only come up a handful of times in my 25+ RTG games too.