Vertical Jumping Ability

[dirtypuppet]

First up, the reason I felt that this merited it's own thread was because I feel that it's something that can be addressed either pre-release or by a patch, I'm not just ranting or bashing but trying to provide constructive criticism that is within the realm of being addressed this development cycle.

In the footage of Elite 11 seen so far players are jumping too high. This goes for actions including but not limited to Dunks, Blocks, in-air Collisions. Not only is this causing some odd looking animation results, but it seems to be affecting gameplay aspects also such as too many jump shots being blocked.

The screen shots I'm posting include players such as Dwight Howard and Lebron James who are probably two of the few players in the league capable of jumping as high as they are in the images. It's not so much a question of whether the players have the ability to elevate to these heights, it's more the context of them doing so. A lot of shot block attempts are allowing players too much height on there vertical leap, but what's more of a problem is some of the in-air collisions driven by the RTP engine.

After a defender receives contact detection in mid-air and switches to a selected collision animation, most of the times this forces them to have an increased velocity upwards, although already at the peak of their jump at the time of collision.

This is resulting in animation results such as the following:

^ Howard getting bumped up on the collision


^ Lebron getting bumped up on the collision


^ Lewis getting bumped up on the collision

In these screenshots, we've got some players who can really get up (Dwight Howard, Lebron James) but it's more the context if you watch the footage of how they got to that height, not necessarily if the player could get up that high. The regularity of this happening is also a problem, because if it wasn't so frequent you could probably make a case that it was a plausible scenario.

Next up is shot blocking attempts. Just straight up jumping ability, not driven by RTP collisions.

^ Wade getting up too high for the block attempt


^ Ilgauskas getting up too high for the block attempt


^ and again


^ and again

As you can see in these pictures, we have players of varied athletic ability getting way off the ground to attempt to block a shot. Dwanye Wade, although a superb athlete, probably wouldn't bet getting up so high to attempt to block a jump shot. Zydrunas Ilgauskas? Doesn't even need an explanation. My concern here is not just the aesthetic of the result, but more how it seems to be affecting gameplay.

In the videos so far, for the most part jump shots either seem to be swish's, or get blocked. Both are a problem but both should be able to be tuned properly. Now I don't want to have to reduce the slider for shot blocking ability because this will reduce the amount of layups and dunks blocked also, I'm just asking for balance to be correct. Otherwise we're likely to have perimeter plays like Vince Carter and Mike Miller leading the league in Blocks instead of Guys like Josh Smith and Dwight Howard.

Now lastly I thought I'd throw in two more screenshots just for good measure.

Jumping Distance:

^ VC turns back the clock

'Rocket Dunks' have already been spoken about at length, and addressed by the Devs, but I though that I'd throw this one out there just in case it still hasn't been tuned correctly.

And to finish on a positive note:

^ bullseye

This dunk was the best and most appropriate dunking animation seen in Elite 11 to date. Mike Miller doing a straight up two handed dunk, not getting too high off the ground. IMO dunks and dunk height such as this should be more regular and even used in scenarios for people such as Dwight and Lebron so to make the highlight dunks for those players stand out more.

To further strengthen my argument, most of these are shown from a Camera that is angled down at the court. This angle should make things appear closer to the ground.

rEAnimator, is there any chance that any of these issues can be addressed pre-release or via a patch? I don't think that they are unreasonable requests especially seeing as they have an affect on gameplay as well as aesthetic.

Thanks for reading

[Jano]

Great post puppet lets just hope that unlike previous it actually gets addressed by the EA team.

[dirtypuppet]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jano

Great post puppet lets just hope that unlike previous it actually gets addressed by the EA team.

Cheers, and agreed.

[Philstat]

This exactly the stuff I referenced in WTF's post earlier tonight. EA keeps stressing they focused on the physics engine for Elite 11 (primary focus along with the control scheme) and you see outlandishly poor physics implemented within those pics - laughable really, that someone thought those were acceptable at EA!

[Philstat]

BTW, I also thought Miller's dunk was by far the most realistic and best looking dunk see to date on 2011. I thought that immediately when seeing the video clip for the first time - I though, hmmm, maybe they can get this thing on track.

[dirtypuppet]

Quote: Originally Posted by Philstat

This exactly the stuff I referenced in WTF's post earlier tonight. EA keeps stressing they focused on the physics engine for Elite 11 (primary focus along with the control scheme) and you see outlandishly poor physics implemented within those pics - laughable really, that someone thought those were acceptable at EA!

I don't think the physics engine is necessarily looking 'outlandish', I just think that it could be tuned a bit differently in some areas and in ways the are realistically achievable in THIS development cycle through a patch.

[RayDog253]

Yeah, great post. I hope the devs really take this into consideration.


Off topic: How'd you take those screen shots?

[dirtypuppet]

Quote: Originally Posted by RayDog253

Yeah, great post. I hope the devs really take this into consideration. Off topic: How'd you take those screen shots?

Full screen youtube.

PC - alt/prtscr (print screen button, next to scroll lock)
MAC - apple/shift/4 (I think)

to screen capture, then I just scaled and cropped in Photoshop