I had a great idea for running plays and I got too excited and took the afternoon off from work to implement it!
I do that a lot more than you'd think.
I found 2 things that are hurting the running game:
1. I don't have a handoff animation yet so the RB is starting with the ball at snap. That's not letting the blocking develop enough, and the defense is getting to the RB too easily.
2. Defenders are getting around blocks too easily. (DL speed is still a problem)
I fixed #2 easily because I found a bug in the blocking system. There were a lot of situations where the blocking system was actually making DL
faster.
For #1, I implemented a "route delay" system. Now, for any play that requires a route. (pass route, run route, block route, blitz) you can specify a part of the route where the player pauses. You can also define how long the pause it. The big benefit of this is that I can have the RB wait a quarter-second before running, and let the blocking develop. I'm also going to use it on pass plays to have late-progression WRs leak into the pattern after other WRs clear out.
So far, these 2 seem to be working
really well. Instead of getting blown out by the Blues because of the swing pass, they blew me out with the running game.
I'll let it play out for a couple weeks before tinkering with it again.
I'm working on zone defense right now, and I think this problem is coming down to crappy play design. I have my zones set larger than they need to be, which might be causing the problem. I'll have to do some refinement of the plays and see where we're at.
Other than those things, I just tightened up some of the decision making timers to make player seem less dumb. So far it feels like I'm getting a better game. We'll see if it holds up through the season.
Next big feature: Either the stats/leaders screen or the standings/schedule screen. It really depends on which one I get inspiration for first.