Rubberband AI??

[phillyfan23]

I know this topic has been discussed before but I cant help but feel that there is rubberbanding AI that kicks in after a certain gap in the score of the game.

Im not claiming the cpu cheats or im pissed off because of a comeback loss, but from my experience it happens both ways. Ive played only play now games.

For example, im the jets playing the browns ( jets are rated 76, browns 87)....

Browns jump out to 21-0 lead, and their defensive line is just killing the jets. But as soon as it hits 21-0, the difficulty just drops even when the browns have FULL momentum. I can almost predict that I will score on the cpu. It's like the game doesnt like 3 score games or more. Same thing when I get a lead after dominating the CPU. You can feel it gets much tougher to put them away for good when compared to jumping out to that lead.

Ive seen this in pro and all pro.

Anyone else see this??




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[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: Rubberband AI??

I know this topic has been discussed before but I cant help but feel that there is rubberbanding AI that kicks in after a certain gap in the score of the game.

Im not claiming the cpu cheats or im pissed off because of a comeback loss, but from my experience it happens both ways. Ive played only play now games.

For example, im the jets playing the browns ( jets are rated 76, browns 87)....

Browns jump out to 21-0 lead, and their defensive line is just killing the jets. But as soon as it hits 21-0, the difficulty just drops even when the browns have FULL momentum. I can almost predict that I will score on the cpu. It's like the game doesnt like 3 score games or more. Same thing when I get a lead after dominating the CPU. You can feel it gets much tougher to put them away for good when compared to jumping out to that lead.

Ive seen this in pro and all pro.

Anyone else see this??




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Seen it both ways on All Madden as well. I don't mind it like i do in racing games, but i think it's definitely there.

[Broncos86]

Re: Rubberband AI??

This might depend on how you play the game, difficulty, sliders, etc.

For example, I play Offense-Only, All-Madden with default sliders.

I won the Super Bowl in my first season, with the Broncos, 24-7 vs the Packers. I shut down KC in the AFC Conf game 28-3. Before that, I blew out the Jaguars like 45-3. However, in week... 13? I lost a game after leading by 20 points as my defense couldn't stop a drive to save their lives in the 2nd half and my offense stalled out.

I had also traded Von Miller, mid-way through the season, because he thought about retiring (which led to some funny cut scenes later in the season when he sat down with Vic Fangio, in his Giants uniform, to tell me he wasn't going to retire anyways!).

I don't think there's a "comeback mechanic" specifically, but it could be due to playcalling decisions by the AI, defenses you play, etc. If the AI decides it needs a lot of yards quickly and starts airing it out, and your defense isn't capable of handling that, you could be in for a rough time.

[Hooe]

Rubberband AI??

The Madden devs have maintained for a long time that there is no rubber band AI in the game.

Any number of things could be the catalyst for a CPU comeback, but some starting questions:

- are you aggressively rotating in backup defensive linemen for a couple plays when starters exhaust their block shedding / pass rush moves points? The same pool is used for both block shedding and pass rushing. If your DLs don’t have any rush move points before a play starts, you are going to get run over. If your DLs don’t have any rush move points and you don’t blitz, the CPU QB will find an open receiver. Most people don’t rotate linemen on their own because the in game substitution interface is clunky.

- are you mixing up your play calls, like are you really getting into your entire playbook? I am under the impression that, particularly on All Madden, the CPU will start aggressively calling counters to repeat play calls even after a small number of uses.

[phillyfan23]

Re: Rubberband AI??

This might depend on how you play the game, difficulty, sliders, etc.

For example, I play Offense-Only, All-Madden with default sliders.

I won the Super Bowl in my first season, with the Broncos, 24-7 vs the Packers. I shut down KC in the AFC Conf game 28-3. Before that, I blew out the Jaguars like 45-3. However, in week... 13? I lost a game after leading by 20 points as my defense couldn't stop a drive to save their lives in the 2nd half and my offense stalled out.

I had also traded Von Miller, mid-way through the season, because he thought about retiring (which led to some funny cut scenes later in the season when he sat down with Vic Fangio, in his Giants uniform, to tell me he wasn't going to retire anyways!).

I don't think there's a "comeback mechanic" specifically, but it could be due to playcalling decisions by the AI, defenses you play, etc. If the AI decides it needs a lot of yards quickly and starts airing it out, and your defense isn't capable of handling that, you could be in for a rough time.

Ahh could be because it's offense only but thx for the detailed answer. Its usually on the defensive side where the problems arise on both me and the cpu.


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[phillyfan23]

Re: Rubberband AI??

The Madden devs have maintained for a long time that there is no rubber band AI in the game.

Any number of things could be the catalyst for a CPU comeback, but some starting questions:

- are you aggressively rotating in backup defensive linemen for a couple plays when starters exhaust their block shedding / pass rush moves points? The same pool is used for both block shedding and pass rushing. If your DLs don’t have any rush move points before a play starts, you are going to get run over. If your DLs don’t have any rush move points and you don’t blitz, the CPU QB will find an open receiver. Most people don’t rotate linemen on their own because the in game substitution interface is clunky.

- are you mixing up your play calls, like are you really getting into your entire playbook? I am under the impression that, particularly on All Madden, the CPU will start aggressively calling counters to repeat play calls even after a small number of uses.

The answers to your questions regarding the subbing is no I do not. I have auto subs on with fatigue around 65/70. I play only using play now, so I have no idea about pass rush points and whatnot.

But I also see this when I play offense and down by 3 scores. The cpu defense which has been straight out stomping me to get their 3 score lead, suddenly cant cover anybody. Getting consecutive completions over 30 yards while the first portion of the game I couldnt do a thing, which is accurate when I used the Jets vs Browns team.

And I called vaniila plays to test this out. You can feel the difficulty actually lowered by the CPU, and theyre on FULL momentum with my camera shaking too. If anything, the ratings boost for the cpu at this point should make it HARDER for me to score, instead of easier. Next game you play, try to pick a bad team vs a good team and see if you do get to big time deficit... 3 scores or more, and see if the cpu defense relaxes at that point.

If this is in the game, which many people have claimed over the years, it is inexcusable, because with sliders we can make it so that playing against a tough team will feel tough without the help of boosta for the team in a huge deficit.


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[Hooe]

Rubberband AI??

If this is in the game, which many people have claimed over the years, it is inexcusable, because with sliders we can make it so that playing against a tough team will feel tough without the help of boosta for the team in a huge deficit.

Again, EA has claimed that rubber band AI is not in Madden. Repeatedly. They are the only people who would know 100% for sure if it was there. If you can’t take their word for it, I don’t know what to tell you.

As a counter example - in Madden 21 on PS4, because receivers got in and out of their route stems so much faster than pass rushers could ever beat blockers, I was capable of literally naming my score on All Madden difficulty against the CPU as long as I had a good QB and one wide receiver with the Outside Apprentice ability. If there were rubberbanding in Madden, we can agree it certainly would have kicked in before I went up 35-0 on a hapless CPU in the first quarter, and absolutely before I finished a game 100-7 or whatever.

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: Rubberband AI??

Again, EA has claimed that rubber band AI is not in Madden. Repeatedly. They are the only people who would know 100% for sure if it was there. If you can’t take their word for it, I don’t know what to tell you.

As a counter example - in Madden 21 on PS4, because receivers got in and out of their route stems so much faster than pass rushers could ever beat blockers, I was capable of literally naming my score on All Madden difficulty against the CPU as long as I had a good QB and one wide receiver with the Outside Apprentice ability. If there were rubberbanding in Madden, we can agree it certainly would have kicked in before I went up 35-0 on a hapless CPU in the first quarter, and absolutely before I finished a game 100-7 or whatever.

I mean they're not going to admit it's in there just like no racing game admits that it's in there. I have had plenty of games where I've destroyed the computer and some where I've gotten destroyed. I have only felt this sometimes, but when I have it seems pretty obvious. Yesterday I was playing the Jets on AM and Wilson started the game 1-7 for 5yds and an INT. I easily went up 21-0. Right after that he led 3 straight TD drives and didn't miss a single throw. My autosubs, fatigue, everything is set to default. My playcalling didn't change. He just flipped a switch. Obviously that can happen in real life too, but it was pretty dramatic. I still won 42-21, but for a quarter or so there was a very obvious shift in how he was playing that brought back some very clear memories of being ahead by a full lap in a racing game only to get caught up to in about 5 seconds by some kind of nonsense.

[Hooe]

Re: Rubberband AI??

I mean they're not going to admit it's in there just like no racing game admits that it's in there.

Racing game developers, especially of arcade racing games like Mario Kart, Burnout, and Need For Speed, pretty candidly admit their games have rubberbanding. Really the only console racer that doesn’t rubberband is Forza, which uses machine learning to power all their CPU racers via the Drivatar system.

That aside - I think it’s quite an act of bad faith to just assume that EA has been lying outright to people who have asked them the same pointed question many times over something like a decade.

If we are to assume EA wouldn’t give us a straight answer on rubberbanding anyway, why bother even asking the question? Or any question at all?

If we are going to ask someone in a position of knowledge a question, it is intellectually dishonest to then immediately reject the answer we are given because we don’t like the answer we received. We don’t know what the code looks like, EA does. If they say there’s no rubberbanding, then there’s no rubberbanding.

[JoshC1977]

Re: Rubberband AI??

I mean they're not going to admit it's in there just like no racing game admits that it's in there. I have had plenty of games where I've destroyed the computer and some where I've gotten destroyed. I have only felt this sometimes, but when I have it seems pretty obvious. Yesterday I was playing the Jets on AM and Wilson started the game 1-7 for 5yds and an INT. I easily went up 21-0. Right after that he led 3 straight TD drives and didn't miss a single throw. My autosubs, fatigue, everything is set to default. My playcalling didn't change. He just flipped a switch. Obviously that can happen in real life too, but it was pretty dramatic. I still won 42-21, but for a quarter or so there was a very obvious shift in how he was playing that brought back some very clear memories of being ahead by a full lap in a racing game only to get caught up to in about 5 seconds by some kind of nonsense.

I think the bolded is a key.

This year, if you fall into a "this has worked so far" trap with your play calls, you can get yourself into trouble quickly. I went through several games like the one you described...then started to figure it out....

It's one thing to have a set scheme that you're sticking to, but introducing variations on the theme (before you see them adjusting) will keep them off-balance.

I played a game vs Lawrence last night; he started out terribly as I was playing my C2 scheme. Anticipating that he would make adjustments, I began changing personnel on the fronts and threw-in a couple of man and C3/C4 looks (while also shifting my coverage to play over top - anticipating deeper attempts - which is exactly what happened). Later, I went back into more of a straight C2 look but began mixing my shading and adding more blitzes. He didn't get a productive drive until 4 mins left in the 4th quarter and we had built a big lead.

[opd897]

Re: Rubberband AI??

Had just been thinking about this the last couple of days. Played probably a dozen games in exhibition while waiting for some things in franchise to get straightened out and it sure seems like something is going on.

Seems as if either I or the CPU goes up by 3 scores the other team will come back with the winning team winning by between 1-3 points. Most of the time the winning team is the one who was down 3 scores at one time.

One example was as the Chiefs I was up on the Raiders 34-14 halfway through the 4th quarter and was having my way with them the entire game only to have them tie it in the last seconds of the game. Maybe not entirely unheard of but when you see it in this game multiple times one, or at least I, have to wonder.

Oh, who won the game? No one, I rage quit after having them tie it with seconds left.

If there is some kind of coding that causes this hopefully it won't carry over to franchise mode.

I should add that I did a CPU VS CPU game set up with Playmakers sliders, Chiefs vs Broncos. No issue here as the Chiefs won 38-7 and were dominate the whole game.

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: Rubberband AI??

Racing game developers, especially of arcade racing games like Mario Kart, Burnout, and Need For Speed, pretty candidly admit their games have rubberbanding. Really the only console racer that doesn’t rubberband is Forza, which uses machine learning to power all their CPU racers via the Drivatar system.

That aside - I think it’s quite an act of bad faith to just assume that EA has been lying outright to people who have asked them the same pointed question many times over something like a decade.

If we are to assume EA wouldn’t give us a straight answer on rubberbanding anyway, why bother even asking the question? Or any question at all?

If we are going to ask someone in a position of knowledge a question, it is intellectually dishonest to then immediately reject the answer we are given because we don’t like the answer we received. We don’t know what the code looks like, EA does. If they say there’s no rubberbanding, then there’s no rubberbanding.

I am not rejecting anything based on my opinion of their response... I am coming to reasonable conclusions based on my experience with the game consistently playing differently once one team is behind a certain number of points.

[Broncos86]

Re: Rubberband AI??

I think it's VERY valuable, this year, to really scout yourself. Franchise mode gives you your own play calling habits. I really handed it to an AI when I started calling plays in formations I don't typically use. I started calling plays on first down I never call, and my guys were wide open.

In year's past, it was the tried and true: runs slants, hit one of them just after they pass the linebackers, gain 30 yards. The AI is taking that away from me this year and I'm having to mix it up.

It reminds me of playing Starcraft 2. In-game, you get beat and think "man, this is BS, this guy must be cheating or his race is OP." Then you watch the replay and see all the mistakes you make and think "oh. No, I just didn't play well."

I am not rejecting anything based on my opinion of their response... I am coming to reasonable conclusions based on my experience with the game consistently playing differently once one team is behind a certain number of points.

Yes, but we have to consider the data. Your results are really considered conjecture, given that it's one source of data in a specific condition.

If we saw this across the board, from different gamers, all seeing the same behavior, we can begin to call this reliable data. But we aren't. It's just a single experience, and perception is different.

[PhillyPhanatic14]

Re: Rubberband AI??

Yes, but we have to consider the data. Your results are really considered conjecture, given that it's one source of data in a specific condition.

If we saw this across the board, from different gamers, all seeing the same behavior, we can begin to call this reliable data. But we aren't. It's just a single experience, and perception is different.

I'm not submitting a research study here, I'm just sharing my experience. As are others who are saying the exact same thing lol. I don't really have an issue with this if it is in the game. I like when the CPU is more competitive and games are closer. I'm merely sharing what I'm seeing and I'm honestly not sure why that's being perceived as such an issue.

[Hooe]

Rubberband AI??

Two more thoughts on the matter:

1 - Madden NFL 20 was pretty extensively data-mined on PC, and we know EA keeps game tuning constants in easy-to-read but lengthy XML files. This is how a lot of modern Madden modding on PC works. If rubberbanding were a thing in Madden, we would very likely find tuning values in those XML files to control the strength of the rubberbanding given the game difficulty, game time remaining, and score differential. To the best of my knowledge, nothing of the sort has ever been found, and I have to believe the Ultimate Team community in particular would be shouting from the rooftops if those controls did exist.

2 - Piggybacking on the MUT point: EA advertises that the cards you are sold are of a certain power level. If it could be 100% proven that EA modulates the effectiveness of a user’s cards based on… whatever it feels like, they would likely be opening themselves up to class action liability for misleading the players about the digital goods they are buying relative to how those goods are advertised.