I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole yesterday on passing, but it's looking pretty good right now. The gunslinger options aren't quite right, but all the systems are in place. It should be easier to fine-tune those when we see how the QB reacts to live defense. Speaking of which, it's defense day!
Right now I'm working on man coverage, and the biggest problem to solve from the Iverson engine is how the CB positions himself in coverage. Iverson uses man defense skill and sets a "coverage error" based off the ideal coverage position. It kinda works, but I don't love it. I want the CB to pick a coverage style on his own, and have his skills only affect his reaction time and ability to defend/intercept the ball. I can't see a real reason to have coverage skill determine where he's positioning himself. That means I need a new AI to figure out where to aim at when covering a receiver.
I think I've narrowed it down to two basic cover styles. What I'm calling
Over and
Between. I want the decision to be fairly simple, so I ditched a lot of complex cover schemes. The last thing I want is for this system to be complex and buggy. I think if I have the CB pick the most appropriate cover style based on the route/positioning, it should be enough to provide some quality pass defense. I'd use a ratio of vertical and horizontal direction in relation to the QB to determine the final positioning style
Over:
Receiver is running vertically towards the QB
Receiver is running horizontally towards the QB
Between:
Receiver is running vertically away from the QB
Receiver is running horizontally away from the QB
Idk, it seems like this should work. I'll probably make that function stand on its own so I can change it easily once we get to play testing.