The prep for Exhibition Season 2 is cruising along! I’ve cleaned up a lot of the bugs found in Ex1 and I’ve started putting some serious time into special teams. There’s a lot to be done here. Kick returns were being brought back for TD at an alarming rate, special teams defenders had almost no chance against decent blocking, and the punt return team had all the discipline of a box of kittens. It also become pretty obvious we need field goals.
I’m going to spend the next few days concentrating on special teams. Here’s the priority list of what needs to happen:
- Add field goals. I’ve already got most of the field goal stuff working. The offensive and defensive plays both work, and the scoring gets updated as it should. I still have to add the ability to block FGs and fine-tune the kicker skill effect. Right now a 100 rated kicker will regularly hit 65 yard FGs, while a 1 rated kicker will have a hard time with extra points. Seems reasonable, but I need to make sure it feels right in-game.
- Fix punts. There’s something off with punt return blocking and coverage. It just looks weird. I also realized I never adjusted punting for kicker skill. That has to get fixed, too. While I’m at it, I’ll add in the ability to block punts.
- Fine-tune kick returns. Kick returns are pretty good, but Urquhart is way too effective. I think the problem is the coverage unit’s ability to break off blocks. If I can get them to break off blocks a little better, we should see more free defenders to attempt to catch Urquhart. If he still houses kickoffs, well that’s on the defense…
After the special teams overhaul is done, I can move on to the new play calling interface. From there, I should be able to tackle the draft screens and then it’s off to Ex2!