Whats the hardest sport to model in a game?

[Airhog]

When it comes to the different sports titles out there, which ones do you think are the hardest to model like the real sport?

I have recently been going to quite a few hockey games. Just your minor league stuff. So I had to rent hockey for the PS2. It just amazed me how poorly NHL 06 replicates the real thing. I just really couldnt get into it considering how this game reminded me more of NFL blitz, then what I watch on the ice. And it got me thinking that maybe hockey is just a harder game to create.

Playing NHL 06, I dont see the players struggle to maintain posession of the puck when they have another player going after them. Passes rarely go off target, and when they do, its by a mile. The ice gives no impression of getting torn up. There is practically zero action along the boards. The CPU never trys to run any set plays, etc.


Is it just me? Or is hockey really that hard to get right on the ice?

[RPI-Fan]

I agree. Before reading your message (and only seeing the topic title), I was thinking hockey and/or soccer.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Airhog

When it comes to the different sports titles out there, which ones do you think are the hardest to model like the real sport?

I have recently been going to quite a few hockey games. Just your minor league stuff. So I had to rent hockey for the PS2. It just amazed me how poorly NHL 06 replicates the real thing. I just really couldnt get into it considering how this game reminded me more of NFL blitz, then what I watch on the ice. And it got me thinking that maybe hockey is just a harder game to create.

Playing NHL 06, I dont see the players struggle to maintain posession of the puck when they have another player going after them. Passes rarely go off target, and when they do, its by a mile. The ice gives no impression of getting torn up. There is practically zero action along the boards. The CPU never trys to run any set plays, etc.


Is it just me? Or is hockey really that hard to get right on the ice?

My guess is that it revolves more around A) the popularity of Hockey and B) what will sell a hockey game.

Realistic, grueling hockey is not going to catch casual/non NHL fans. And if you're catering to just hardcore NHL fans, well, you're not selling many games.

In addition, the sales of NHL games have to be significantly lower than the big 3 sports, and probably even Tiger Woods. Therefore you're going to get less time and money put into development, therefore it will likely be not as solid. In reality, I just can't see how 10 guys on a hockey rink could be harder than a soccer game which has twice as many on the field. Or harder than basketball which has the same number of guys. I would argue that probably football is the hardest. The reason I say this is all 22 guys have to be doing very specific actions at once. My impression is that say with soccer, there is a significant amount of time with a large chunk of players not really doing anything off-screen, where with football they have to be.

[MikeVic]

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

I agree. Before reading your message (and only seeing the topic title), I was thinking hockey and/or soccer.

I think Pro Evo. has done a decent job with that, at least better than Fifa has.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Airhog

Playing NHL 06, I dont see the players struggle to maintain posession of the puck when they have another player going after them. Passes rarely go off target, and when they do, its by a mile. The ice gives no impression of getting torn up. There is practically zero action along the boards. The CPU never trys to run any set plays, etc.

Try ESPN NHL 2k6. I haven't played that version, but I did play the hell out of the 2k5 version and it was much better than EA's game in terms of realism. However, it still doesn't get it quite right.

[MJ4H]

Based on the games I've played, hockey sure seems to be it. Never played a hockey game I enjoyed (well, since NHL 95 but that was because I was new to hockey and computers at the time and it was just a whole new world). Hockey games mostly suck. The closest I've come to enjoying a game since then was Powerplay 98 but that was so dang buggy I couldn't play for more than a few games without killing a pet.

[Groundhog]

I'm yet to play a basketball game that is close to getting it right.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

I'm yet to play a basketball game that is close to getting it right.

Yeah I considerd that, but I think some of the Sega/ESPN games at least feel like basketball to a degree. I can understand for sure if you don't think those are closer than hockey, but I do. The hockey games don't feel remotely like hockey.

[Maple Leafs]

Definitely hockey.

The NHL series seems to have given up completely -- they're more interested in developing versions of EA Hockey (where one-timers are the only way to score, odd-man rushes don't exist, and fights are a chance for a Street Fighter style mini-game). And from a business perspective, they're probably right.

The ESPN games are better, but that's not saying much -- the bar is very low.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

Definitely hockey.

The NHL series seems to have given up completely -- they're more interested in developing versions of EA Hockey (where one-timers are the only way to score, odd-man rushes don't exist, and fights are a chance for a Street Fighter style mini-game). And from a business perspective, they're probably right.

The ESPN games are better, but that's not saying much -- the bar is very low.

I really think you guys are missing the real problem here. I really don't think that Hockey is HARDER to develop. Just because the games don't do it well, does not mean that it is harder. I think there are many outside factors making the games not as good rather than difficulty.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by wade moore

I really think you guys are missing the real problem here. I really don't think that Hockey is HARDER to develop. Just because the games don't do it well, does not mean that it is harder. I think there are many outside factors making the games not as good rather than difficulty.

True, but I still think it's tougher. The play needs to "flow" much moreso than baseball or football. The players need to make decisions, cover for each other, take risks out of position, etc. Yes, there are diagramed playes, but most of the game is read-and-react and it's just tough to get an AI to play that well.

I don't follow basketball very closely -- my impression is that it's closer to hockey, but still not as free-flowing.

All that said, I have to say that Bethesda's Wayne Gretzky Hockey did a very decent job of simulating NHL hockey. If I was starting a new hockey game, I'd try to license that engine and build the pretty graphics on top of it.

[MJ4H]

Not missing the point, just based my conclusion on the evidence I had, which is how successfully sports have been modelled by companies that try.

[st.cronin]

Canadian Football?

[DaddyTorgo]

curling?

[Huckleberry]

Going in the opposite direction, the most frustrating thing about baseball games was that it should theoretically be the easiest to get right but the games usually sucked because of laziness in the past.

Note that I don't have a console anymore so I haven't tried the MVP games.

[CraigSca]

MLB 2006: The Show fixed that problem

[Maple Leafs]

The problem with baseball is it's the easiest to sim (in theory), but also the most boring to play if simmed properly. A well-done baseball game wouldn't be fun to play for the masses. So you almost have to start with a one-pitch at-bat, which kills half the strategy right away.

[Travis]

My biggest problem with any hockey game that I've played is that it's never really a team sport on the ice. You usually end up going end to end with one guy, or at most, use a first pass to spring your rush. Then it's end to end to be finished by some sort of game breaker deke or one time pass for the goal.

Even on power plays you're never rewarded much for using any sort of system and passing it around, you're usually just better off to use one guy and speed burst to get the goalie and D out of position for the empty net goal.

[tanglewood]

I would think that, for want of a better term, 'turn-based' games such as football, baseball, cricket and so on would be easiest to make games of whilst 'real time' sports such as soccer, ice hockey and basketball would be more difficult. Part of this I'd say is that in the turn-based sports you have a set number of outcomes that can be more easily abstracted as it is easier for the player to fill in the blanks with their own imagination. Therefore, you don't need so much detailed feedback so you can get away with a less detailed engine. FOF is a good example of this, the typical feedback from a play is very basic, but reasonably satisfactory as you can assume what happened generally yourself as the sport is a reasonably predictable game. Also, because 'real-time' sports are more fluid and, very importantly, have possesion changes, the games need to be calculating where each player is on the field at every moment, where they are moving etc. Additionally it needs to calculate each player's individual goal which is constantly changing as the play breaks down/builds up etc. In the turn-based games each play is a discrete event, so each player has a clear and specified goal and a clear and specified task to perform that doesn't change. That I imagine would make it much easier to calculate.

[sachmo71]

sweat patterns

[stevew]

Every basketball game I've ever played has been pretty much awful.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by stevew

Every basketball game I've ever played has been pretty much awful.

I second that motion. Hockey games are usually bad, but at least you can get the stats reasonably realistic. I have never played a basketball game in which I can't get 50 points out of a decent big man every game on 80% shooting, and that actually simulates an outside shooting game properly.

[AnalBumCover]

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=48794

[Suburban Rhythm]

Originally Posted by wade moore

My guess is that it revolves more around A) the popularity of Hockey and B) what will sell a hockey game.

Realistic, grueling hockey is not going to catch casual/non NHL fans. And if you're catering to just hardcore NHL fans, well, you're not selling many games.

I think that's the key parts there. The EA series was created to entertain as an arcade-type game. If that's what people were after, it filled that need. But for someone looking for a realistic game, it was terrible. The roster makeup and players ratings were bad enough, then coupled with the gameplay made it unplayable. Rob Blake's 184 mph slap shot wasn't fun after about 3 minutes.

But I think most games are made that way in general. EA's goal was never to market a realistic game, but a high-selling game. If everything was made realistically, the casual fan wouldn't be buying anymore.

Take for example...a few years back, I got into an arguement with a guy I worked with. He was mid 20's, only 2-3 years younger than me at that point, and thought he was a fountain of football knowledge...the kind of guy you love to knock down a peg or two when given the shot.

He asked me who I thought the fastest player in the NFL was. I said probably a few guys could be considered. Are we talking running a 40? Game conditions?

He shot back "Michael Bennett is the fastest!" and when I asked him based on what he told me "Because he's the only guy in Madden '05 (thinking this would have been in late 2004) with a 99 speed rating!"

When people start basing their entire concept of a sport on a video game--other than FOF of course!--then you know people aren't shopping for realism.

[AlexB]

Mud wrestling.